Catholic Christianity 

AND 

CQodei^n Unbelief. 



A PLAIN AND BRIEF STATEMENT 



OF 



The Real Doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, 

AS OPPOSED 

To those falsely attributed to her, by Christians who reject her authority, 
and by Unbelievers in Revelation ; that thus 

.A. CONTRAST 

May be easily drawn between the "Faith once delivered to the Saints," 

AND 

The Conflicting Theories, and Scientific Guesses of the present Age ; and 

serving as a 

REFUTATION 

To the assaults of modern Infidelity. 

by the ^/ 

RIGHT REV. J. D RICARDS, D.D. 

Bishop of Retimo, and Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern 
Vicariate of the Cape Colony. 



New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis: 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 



The Library 
op Congress 



WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1884, by BENZIGER BROTHERS. 



DEDIO^¥I0N. 



To the Clergy and Religious 

OF 

The Vicariate of the Eastern Districts of the Cape Colony, South Africa, 

who have borne patiently with my many short-comings and imperfections, 
and have faithfully and zealously co-operated with me in every 
undertaking for the honor and glory of god, and the plant- 
ing and fostering of catholic christianity, in the portion 
of south africa committed to my pastoral charge, 

This Book, 

with every feeling of esteem and attachment, and with a grateful 
remembrance of many kindnesses received, 
is respectfully inscribed, 

BY 

She fluwHOi^. 



All I have written I believe to be trustworthy, and in 
accordance with the constant teaching of the Holy Catholic 
Church j nevertheless I humbly submit everything contained in 
this book to the unerring judgment of the same Holy Church. 

* J. D. RICARDS, Ep. & Vic. Ap., 

Grahamstown, South Africa , June 23d, 1884. 



PREFACE. 



This work was suggested to me by a man of more than 
ordinary powers of observation and intelligence, who bad 
travelled over every part of tbe United States, and 
through most of the British colonies. His was not 
superficial travelling ; his duties led him to stay for weeks, 
and months, and even years, in some of the States, and in 
particular districts ; and the same duties gave him an in- 
sight into the religious wants of the people he visited. 
He told me that a book which would treat, in a popular 
way, the religious theories now so fashionable outside the 
Catholic Church, and contrast them with orthodox teach- 
ing, would be welcome and useful to many. I distrusted 
exceedingly my powers to accomplish a task, not alto- 
gether foreign to my experience ; but on consideration 
that it might help in a small way even to promote the 
honor and glory of God, I accepted it. 

It will be manifest to any one who reads the introduc- 
tion or glances over the headings of the chapters, that I 
make no pretensions whatever to scholarship : the life of. 
a missionary Bishop is almost an effectual barrier to care- 
ful and prolonged study and to the means of gratifying 
such tastes. I have, however, been observant of the 
currents of religious thought outside the Catholic Church 
in the colony where I have spent thirty-five years of my 
life as priest or Bishop ; and I have occasionally, when I 
believed it was my duty to check their turbulent course, 



6 



PREFACE. 



especially whenever they seemed to assail the ground of 
Catholic teaching, endeavored to do so to the best of my 
ability. One cannot travel much, as I have done, over 
the large area confided to my spiritual care without en- 
countering many un-Oatholic notions ; and it has been my 
constant practice to watch attentively these straws of re- 
ligious opinion, and with the help of such books as I could 
collect, to examine what was the source of these peculiar 
views. 

It was always a pleasure, not alone in the interests of 
orthodox teaching, but for the sake of communicating 
the results of my reading to men remarkable for that out- 
spoken freedom of thought, which marks young coun- 
tries, to "give reasons for the faith that is in me." It 
was often highly gratifying to be able thus to remove 
deep-seated prejudices, and to show those who, by their 
pleased and grateful attention, invited such explanation, 
that Catholics were not quite as bad as the teachers of 
error represented them to be. The frequent remark, 
"You surprise me," "Is it so, really ?" "Can what you 
say be the real truth ?" " How different is what you say 
from what I have always heard !" often, made me hopeful 
that those with whom I conversed might push their in- 
quiries farther. 

This habit of life will explain much that might other- 
wise be almost unintelligible to readers of the book in 
Catholic countries. The bold daring of the objections 
and the answers, so far removed from anything like 
scholastic precision, would seem to indicate a state of 
thought and feeling almost unknown to those of the 
"Household of the Faith." This must be my apology 
lor much that is not found in the pages of ordinary works 
of a controversial character. 



PREFACE. 



7 



a.ndeed, this book can scarcely be considered a polemi- 
cal work at all. There is manifestly a plunge in medias 
resy without any attempt to prepare the way by building 
up a solid starting-point of sound principles and elaborate 
arguments. Possibly this absence of formality may cause 
the book to be more generally read than it otherwise 
would be. I can assure those who may be thus attracted 
to examine its contents, that their reading will not be im- 
peded by any show of learning or stiff reasoning derived 
from treatises on theology and metaphysics. 

My object has been throughout to state the difficulties 
urged by unbelief against Catholic Christianity plainly and 
even forcibly — much more forcibly than they have been 
put to me by travelling companions, and men whom I 
have met, disposed to discuss religious questions. The 
answers are directed chiefly to common-sense, and are 
supported by plain matter-of-fact demonstrations carefully 
selected, on account of their simplicity, from hosts of 
others more suited to the schools. 

The whole plan of the work is conceived on the same 
principles. I first endeavor to show what Catholic Chris- 
tianity is as a whole, regarded from the point of view of 
a believer ; how all its doctrines, mysteries, sacraments, 
worship, and practices spring from a right understanding 
of the great mystery — God in the flesh, which forms the 
basis of all revealed religion. I then carefully eliminate 
this body of doctrine from the misunderstandings and 
misrepresentations to which it is commonly subjected, 
distinguish it from the doctrines of Christian sects, and 
explain fully these differences on the important questions 
of Justification, Free-will, Grace, and Predestination. If 
at times this leads me into the path of controversy, I have 
been careful to turn aside from the well-beaten track as 



8 



PREFACE. 



soon as it was possible, satisfying myself with noting, in 
characters that cannot be mistaken by ordinary intelli- 
gence, the essential marks of true Catholic teaching. 

When this has been effected, and Catholic Christianity 
stands forth in its dogmas and practices as I revere and 
love it, and as I believe it is revered and loved by the two 
hundred millions of my fellow-Catholics throughout the 
world, I contrast its sublime grandeur, its venerable 
antiquity, and its unchanging truth with the fascinations 
of unbelief. 

I do not enter minutely into the analysis of these 
theories that are the fashion of the hour. It is unneces- 
sary to do so. They are self -conflicting, like their teach- 
ers, " tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind 
of doctrine," and ever dashing against the sound prin- 
ciples of revealed religion, as established and bound 
together by the labors of Christian scholars in every age, 
on the solid foundation laid by Christ Himself. 

There is nothing worthy of serious study in any of these 
ephemeral systems that amuse the fancies of a frivolous 
and unthinking generation. 

" We live," said the late Lord Beaconsfleld, " in an age 
when young men prattle about protoplasm and when 
young ladies, in golden saloons, unconsciously talk Athe- 
ism." 

" Positive polity," says another able writer, " is com- 
posed of concrete and abstract, positive and metaphysical 
elements of fact and fiction, of entity and non entity." It 
would be a mere loss of time to pick and choose among 
these glittering toys, sometimes facts, and more often 
fictions, set before the public by unbelieving scientific 
writers, and out of these elements to construct something 
worth battering down by theological argument. 



PREFACE. 



9 



When the scientific teachers themselves understand 
what they teach, and unite in giving the world something 
like a system, it will be time enough for the upholders of 
revealed religion to refute it. 

As one of the distinguished lecturers before the Chris- 
tian Evidence Society says of the grand theory of De- 
velopment : " Development is in truth as amazing and 
incomprehensible a mystery as creation. It seems to be 
but another word for creation. Only they who affect to 
use it instead of the word creation insist upon creation 
without a creator. The unintelligent and unconscious 
universe, in their view, is continually creating itself — 
Professor Huxley's protoplasm breaks it down. All scien- 
tific evidence is opposed to the idea that protoplasm was 
developed out of inorganic matter. The hypothesis of 
spontaneous life-generation appears to be exploded. 
Science at any rate, on its own positive principles, has no 
right whatever to pretend that life has ever been de- 
veloped out of what was not living." 

Just so, at one time in the world's history, we are told 
by the leaders of progress, everything was inorganic and 
dead ; then that all was living. 

Whence did life come % It could not be developed. 
Was it then created ? When scientific men are agreed on 
this one point — the origin of life — then no doubt there 
will appear able supporters of revealed religion to de- 
monstrate to an interested public that the source of life 
is the great, omnipotent, and all-knowing personal God, 
" by Whom all things were made, and without Whom was 
made nothing that was made." 

In the meantime, and until progress has laid before the 
world its demonstration of the origin of life, Christians of 
all denominations can rest securely on the words of the 



10 



PREFACE. 



inspired writer, "Thou Thyself O Lord, alone, Thou 

hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the 
hosts thereof : the earth and all the things that are in it : 
the seas, and all that are therein ; and Thou givest life to 
all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth Thee" 
(2 Esdras ix. 6). 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Dedication 3 

Preface 5 

Introduction 13 

CHAPTER 

I. Catholic Christianity and its Contrasts 35 

II. Catholic Christianity and its Mysteries 55 

III. The Incarnation, the Centre and Soul of Catholic 

Christianity 78 

IV. Catholic Christianity Developed in the Sacramental 

Principle 96 

V. Catholic Christianity in some Practical Aspects 113 

VI. A Glimpse of Catholic Christianity as seen by Faith 132 

VII. A Further View of Catholic Christianity through its 

Forms of Worship 150 

VIII. Catholic Christianity Misunderstood by Free thinkers. . 171 
IX. Catholic Christianity in Relation to Education and 

Marriage . . 191 

X. Catholic Christianity as Opposed to Emotional Christi- 
anity 209 

XI. Catholic Christianity, Justification, and Sanctity 228 

XII. Catholic Christianity untinged by the Gloom of Pre- 
destination 246 



12 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII. Catholic Christianity and Divine Grace 263 

XIV. Catholic Christianity and Material Prosperity 277 

XV. Catholic Christianity and Exclusive Salvation 297 

XVI. Catholic Christianity and the Alleged Errors of the 

Sacred Scriptures 316 

XVII. Catholic Christianity and some Popular "isms" 337 

XVIII. Catholic Christianity and Realism. 354 

XIX. Catholic Christianity and Spiritism 368 

XX. Conclusion 384 



INTRODUCTION. 



If one could calmly contemplate the great stream of 
human life as it rolls on toward the ocean of eternity, 
and with a keen power of perception, such as is rarely 
given to finite reason, grasp the aims and projects of the 
masses as they are swept onward in their rapid course, he 
would soon be convinced that few among the many mil- 
lions concern themselves about " the wide, the unbounded 
prospect" that lies before them after death. It is not 
simply that " shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it," 
but that they do not care or concern themselves to look 
forward, and try to penetrate the dark future. Life with 
its busy cares absorbs the whole attention of the many, 
and if Death and its immortal consequences roughly ob- 
trude upon their day-dreams, the grim phantom is at 
once relegated to the land of myths and shadows. 

The blighting curse of the present age is the total 
absence of serious thought about the great hereafter. 
Well may the words of the prophet be applied to the 
myriads who are so fascinated with the joys and pursuits 
of the present short-lived time as to take no precautions 
whatever against the wreck and ruin of all that should be 
most dear to beings who "shall never die:" — "With 
desolation is all the land made desolate ; because there is 
none that considereth in the heart" (Jeremias xii. 11). 
Men will talk occasionally about these all-important sul> 
jects, but they will not think. They will even jest an# 



14 



INTRODUCTION. 



trifle about them, if they can in no other way shake off 
the gloomy vision; and as "the fool hath said" — not 
thought — " in his heart, there is no God " (Psalm xiii. 
1), so will they who " love the world and the things that 
are in the world " say and affect to believe that there is 
no future to cause them apprehension. 

I believe that no one of ordinary intelligence and 
observation will deny that unbelief, the offspring of 
frivolity and thoughtlessness, is rapidly spreading over 
the whole civilized world. It is not philosophical and 
reasoning Infidelity that is causing whole nations, in this 
nineteenth century, to turn away from God and His Christ 
and the hopes of Faith, but thoughtless and flippant ridi- 
cule of the joys and terrors set before us by revelation. It 
is utter carelessness and indifference about sacred things 
that is doing this wide-spread mischief. 

Voltaire, and the wretched crew who sided with him 
in the war against Christianity, perverted their splendid 
abilities in order to fling away the fetters and restraints 
of conscience and the Divine law. They labored hard, 
they spared themselves no toil, they shrunk from no sac- 
rifice of honor or truth, to carry out their diabolical pur- 
pose, and " ecraser Vinfame" 

But the laughing, jeering, mocking infidels of our time 
have found a shorter way than this to secure what are 
called " the glorious privileges of Free-thought." They 
simply caricature revealed religion, picture to themselves 
an extravagantly ludicrous creation of their irreverent 
and unrestrained imagination, and, instead of the venera- 
ble and beautiful "mother of all the living" that ruled 
the hearts and guided the steps of her wayward children 
with infinite patience and love, set up a hateful monster, 
hideous in its deformity, and destitute of any quality 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



deserving of reverence and affection. They leave all the 
thinking and reasoning to a few deluded visionaries of 
science, who, in the pride of their grand discoveries and 
inventions, have been led to worship themselves, and for- 
get the God who made them ; and, borrowing from these 
prophets and guides some charming but extravagant 
theories, they amuse their idle hours with fancy sketches 
of Religion, that convulse themselves with merriment, 
and which, while they amuse the thoughtless multitude, 
effectually rob them of every element of reverent and 
trusting faith. 

What do these " blind leaders of the blind " care for 
patient reasoning and sound argument ? They will not 
give themselves the trouble to entertain a serious thought 
on such a subject. If they are checked by the thought- 
ful and the wise, and called upon to explain the principles 
that are supposed to sustain their crude and whimsical 
notions of the Deity and the world to come, they at once 
fall back on the great discovery of the age — Agnosticism. 
" God," they say, " is the unknown and unknowable." 

This great principle of Positivism and modern Free- 
thought being once supposed, there is no going beyond 
this stronghold. Nay, admit for a moment this crowning 
bulwark of Infidelity, and the very raw recruits of the 
movement will dash forth in brilliant charges on the lines 
of Christian argument. " Who can tell us anything of 
the unknowable — who hath seen the invisible? Who 
can say anything with certainty of the dark future ? Who 
will venture to say that we have immortal souls, or specu- 
late on the blank form of eternity of which we can know 
absolutely nothing ?" 

Our great leaders in scientific research have settled it 
to their own satisfaction, that nothing can be established 



16 



INTRODUCTION. 



as a fact save through the reason instructed by bodily 
sense. " This is an axiom, and therefore no one can argue 
about Heaven, or Hell, or the Immortality of the soul. 
These things possibly may be ; but they are beyond the 
ken of beings who have their eyes and ears and hands 
and smell and taste to guide them to rational conclusions. 
Everything beyond plain and satisfactory results like 
these is irrational and absurd. And why, therefore, 
should we concern ourselves about proofs in revelation, 
and prophecies and mysteries and miracles, when it is 
manifestly beyond our powers of thought to convince 
others, or be convinced ourselves, that there is such a 
thing as a personal God ?" 

Sophistry like this will of course be readily admitted 
by the ignorant or unthinking crowd, who care only to 
drive away from the conscience whatever can put a 
restraint on their sensual appetites. They have neither 
the time nor the disposition to confuse their minds with 
the "musty old questions of the ages of darkness and 
superstition." Carpe diem: "A bird in the hand is 
worth two in the bush." " Let us eat, drink, and be 
merry, as we float joyously and swiftly down the stream 
of life. And if to-morrow we die, why then it will be 
time enough to think of the future — if indeed there is a 
future." 

This, without exaggeration, is, I believe, the sum and 
substance of the laughing, gay, and rollicking sort of In- 
fidelity, which is fast dissipating from the minds of the 
giddy throng even their nebulous and shadowy traditions 
of the old Faith, that has sustained the world for eighteen 
hundred years. 

It can easily be seen from this that the Infidelity of the 
latter part of the nineteenth century is much more dan 



INTRODUCTION. 



17 



gerous to society than that of any former age. The Yol- 
taireans were wits and scholars. They read a great deal, 
they were familiar with every passage in the Sacred 
Scriptures which their leader had applied all his learning 
to twist and transform into a sense that captivated the 
polished taste of his admiring votaries. They had learned 
from him to set a witty or epigrammatic form of expres- 
sion above all other excellences in writing or in speech ; 
and to esteem the play of fancy most of all whenever it 
ridiculed what was sacred and venerable in the thoughts 
and convictions of believers. But the double-entendres, 
and bon-mots, and the flashing epigram were above the 
perceptions of the unread and uneducated, and were the 
exclusive property of a privileged class. "Partem et 
circenses" cheap food and unrestrained enjoyment, no 
labor, no taxes — these were the fruits of the new philoso- 
phy that charmed the masses. They heeded not the fine 
sayings and the learned doctrines of the Encyclopsedia 
and the Dictionary of Philosophy, so long as the sover- 
eign will of the people triumphed, and an age of whole- 
sale levelling set in. The gay crowds of the cities of 
France were delirious with the new spirit of progress. 
They shouted "A bas les Aristocrates" "A has les 
Pretres" with the same frenzy as the high-sounding names 
" Liberie , Egalite, Fraternite" and danced like fiends 
round the tree of liberty. While they had their own 
way, unrestrained by law and order and the dictates of 
conscience and the warnings of religion, it mattered lit- 
tle to them how their leaders thought out the political 
problems of the hour, or what idols were set up for their 
adoration. They were as brutal as the crowd at the foot 
of Sinai ; and, had a golden calf been placed on the altar 
instead of a shameless woman, it would have been all the 



18 



INTRODUCTION. 



same, provided it symbolized the reign of lawlessness 
and sensuality. 

Things are quite different now. The hruttcm fulmen 
— the power of the law supported by bayonets — keeps the 
mob in order. No high-wrought sentimentalism for fel- 
low-citizens will cause men who have money in the funds 
to fraternize with poverty-stricken wretches who presume 
to disturb the public order. Simon Tappertits may thun- 
der in dark cellars against government, and the rights of 
property; trades-unions may now and then show their 
teeth in public ; but if they growl or even bark, they 
dare not bite. For this reason, the Infidelity that is cor- 
rupting the masses of the chief towns of Europe, causes 
no alarm ; and therefore it has advanced unchecked, until 
now it has reached a point that may well excite the ap- 
prehensions of all governments. 

It is more than forty years ago that I read of one of 
the Bradlaugh class, who, in his club-room in London, 
defied God to strike him dead, if the horrid blasphemies 
he uttered were untrue, and pointing to the clock, gave 
his Divine Maker a full five minutes to carry out the im- 
precation, It is stated, in the respectable publication in 
which I read the account of the revolting occurrence, that 
a terror seemed to diffuse itself over the whole assembly 
as they watched the hands slowly move over the interval, 
and looked at the sturdy ruffian who had thus dared to 
outrage and trample out the conscience of his fellow-men 
stand with folded arms awaiting the result. I venture 
to state that at the present day, in thousands of working- 
men's associations in Great Britain, where men speak 
freely of religion, a sensational scene like this, if at- 
tempted, would only provoke a laugh ; and that the 
speaker who would boldly deny the existence of God 



INTEODUCTIOlSr. 



19 



would be told to pass on to some other point of greater 
interest and less admitted and understood. 

Those who have read in Dickens' " Barnaby Rudge" 
the account of the Gordon riots (when some fanatics 
who gloried in the heritage of Free-thought, urged the 
mob to crush the Roman Catholics of London for daring 
to petition for something like the free exercise of their 
religion), may think that nothing could be worse than 
the condition of the metropolis during these terrible days 
of riot and confusion. But I feel assured, from what I 
have read of the secret societies in that great city, and 
seen of the illustrated printed matter circulated amongst 
them, that the Gordon riots would afford the faintest 
idea of the scenes of violence and confusion that would 
ensue if for any cause the strong arm of the law were 
paralyzed or suspended. It is a terrible thing to realize 
to one's self that in these enlightened days, when we are 
supposed to bask in the enjoyment of that much-lauded 
Free-thought and independence of Divine authority in 
religion, there is scarcely such a thing as a conscience in 
the souls of the most dreaded and dangerous classes ; that 
no sense of right and wrong, and fear of God and His 
chastisements, would offer the least restraint to the per- 
petration of deeds, the bare thought of which makes one 
sick with terror ; and that it is only fear of " the powers 
that be" — cringing, whipt-dog fear — that keeps the mobs 
of our great cities of Europe in anything like order. 

Education without religion is to a great extent the 
cause of this state of things ; but the main cause of all is 
the absence of Divine Faith, which is the necessary con- 
sequence of rebellion against legitimate authority. The 
Catholic Church, through her divinely instituted teaching 
body, has never ceased to warn the rulers of this world 



20 



INTRODUCTION. 



that the seeds of that wild teaching, scattered at the will 
of each individual, will infallibly produce its fatal results 
— " They shall sow wind, and reap a whirlwind " (Osee 
viii. 7). 

Hitherto I have confined the contrast between the Infi- 
delity of the present day and that of the period of the 
great Revolution of the eighteenth century to the effects 
on the working-classes, or the uneducated portion of the 
community. In the higher classes, also, there is much to 
be noted that makes the Infidelity of the present age more 
dangerous to society than that of the Yoltairean period. 
The educated Yoltaireans prided themselves on an accu- 
rate knowledge of the arts and sciences, the facts of his- 
tory, and the discoveries of the learned, that rendered 
them, in their opinion, immeasurably superior in learning 
to the scholars in the service of the Church. This was 
in truth only a conceit ; for the clergy of France at the 
time had every advantage which could be afforded by 
colleges and universities, and the long training for the 
ministry, and the careful study of philosophy, and of 
" the science of sciences" — theology. This knowledge 
was practically tested by repeated examinations, and after 
ordination, by annual conferences which insured compe- 
tent knowledge in all the clergy. The Yoltairean, there- 
fore, to shine in the salons and enjoy triumph over his 
clerical adversary, should necessarily be well-informed, 
and quick and sharp in argument, on all topics connected 
with religion. 

The Lord Dundrearies of our time and their Lady- 
ships, who have made up their minds to enjoy life and 
let the future take care of itself, abhor everything like 
religious controversy. Even amongst the rich and well- 
to-do commoners such subjects are tabooed ; for it is well 



LNTKODUCTION. 



21 



understood that to raise questions on religion m polite 
and polished circles is directly opposed to good taste and 
the convenances of society. Lady So-and-so may, through 
the irresistible instincts of a benevolent disposition, take 
an interest in certain charitable institutions ; or ray Lord 
love to preside at meetings for the benefit of the be- 
nighted heathens of Borrioboola-Gha, or Alderman Bull 
and his amiable lady delight in heading a large subscrip- 
tion-list in the Times ; but you will scarcely find one of 
these tranquil and self-satisfied souls who will allow the 
calm surface of their lives to be rippled by the breath of 
an earnest discussion about truths that concern the world 
to come. 

There is little to move any of this easy-going class to 
self-sacrifice or disinterested labor for the honor and 
glory of God and the good of their neighbor, where the 
work does not fall in with their notions of what is fash- 
ionable and becoming. If the preacher of the church, 
where they are wont to attend, commends himself to 
them and their " set" by the suavity of his voice and 
manner and the sesthetical arrangement of his namby- 
pamby essays on morality in general, and if the choir 
sing prettily, they condescend to patronize Divine wor- 
ship Sunday after Sunday unless they feel indisposed. 
But woe betide the preacher if he should dare to ruffle 
their tender sensibilities by allusion to the fact that "the 
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
only bear it away" (Matt. xi. 12), or the necessity of tak- 
ing up the cross daily, or the judgment, and the wrath 
to come. He may soon address his appeals to empty 
benches. These good people are too fond of their own 
comfort to expose themselves to the danger of having 
their equanimity disturbed, and they prefer some charm- 



22 



INTRODUCTION. 



ing novel, in their own quiet snuggery, to the luxurious 
ease of the family pew. 

It is a well-known fact that there are in fashionable 
quarters of London whole streets of mansions the Sab- 
bath rest of which is never broken by the sounds of car- 
riages conveying the wealthy proprietors to and from 
the parochial church on Sundays. 

I have been told by an old resident of the great city 
that the rule of life in these paradisaical retreats, on the 
Lord's Day, is, within the last fifteen or twenty years, to 
have a social gathering of kindred spirits on Saturday 
nights, generally prolonged to the small hours with music 
and dancing, and a sumptuous supper, to give the greater 
part of Sunday to indolent repose, and to take a drive in 
the afternoon to give zest to the late evening meal. 
When this becomes fashionable and the correct thing, as 
it seems to be already, how poor are the chances of even 
a gleam of spiritual life ! And when superadded to this 
the reading of works of a transcendental character, in 
which a loftier idea of the aims and objects of life is pre- 
tended than vulgar Christianity or the Bible suggests, be- 
comes the rage, and these favored children of fortune, 
reclining on luxurious couches, dream away their existence 

"till human time 
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky- 
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb, 
Unread forever," 

what is to become of sturdy, healthy Faith, and walking 
in the footsteps of " the Man of sorrows" ? Well might 
our Divine Lord, in His luminous vision of these lotus- 
eaters of the world of fashion in these latter times, ex- 
claim, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find, 
think you, faith on earth ?" (Luke xviii. 8.) 



INTRODUCTION. 



23 



It will be readily inferred from this tendency of the 
age to indifference about religion — life without God, 
education without God, the poor deprived of the conso- 
lations of Faith, and chafing under the sense of cruel 
wrong, and longing ardently for the day when capital 
and its possessors shall be dragged down from their 
earthly paradise, and compelled to share their coveted 
possessions ; the rich wrapped up in the selfish enjoy- 
ment and repose that comes of " beauteous order" and the 
"gladness of the world," that the spread of irreligion and 
the forgetfulness of God and the future must be far 
wider than is generally imagined. Yes, and it will con- 
tinue to diffuse itself with ever-increasing rapidity where 
it does not encounter the Rock founded by an Almighty 
hand, and that immovable barrier against which He has 
assured us even the powers of hell shall never prevail. 

If that Rock could be upheaved, if that barrier could 
be swept away, if the " everlasting Church" could crumble 
into ruins, what then could stem the tide of evil that is 
rising every day higher and higher, till it fills with alarm 
every man of mind that watches its progress ? 

Will Free-thought, and the right of all men to deal as 
they think fit with the Divine message, stem the surging 
torrent ? "Why, this is itself the true source and origin of 
the growing impiety. If this boasted prerogative of hu- 
man pride were not sustained by the bond of formularies 
and creeds, it would long ago have been overwhelmed by 
the forces it has called into existence. 

"Will the millions and millions of Bibles that are teem- 
ing from the press close the breaches which Pantheism 
and Socialism, and the other "isms" Free-thought has 
engendered, are making in its feeble and worthless bar- 
rier ? Why, it is this senseless scattering of the Word of 



24 



INTRODUCTION. 



God amongst the crowds, who can hardly read, much 
less understand its pages, that has robbed the Holy Book 
of that strength and power with which it was endowed 
while it was carefully guarded by the Church from the 
touch of profanity, and made it as useless as the dust 
trodden down on the highways, to oppose the floods of 
Infidelity. 

Will emotional piety, however worked up by stirring 
appeals to sentiment, dare to sustain itself in the way of 
the accumulated waters of unbelief, that now assert 
themselves openly and defiantly, and can already be 
heard by those "who have ears to hear," threatening 
the foundations of social order? As well might we 
hope to dam the furious course of a swollen river with 
a bundle of weak and perishable reeds. 

The only salvation of the world against this ever-in- 
creasing danger is, I repeat, the Rock established more 
than eighteen centuries ago, by our Divine Redeemer. 
We have His solemn promise that this Rock shall never fail. 
It has stood the test of perils that seemed overwhelming 
from within and without. It defied, for three hundred 
years, the persecution of the greatest power the world 
ever saw. It has crushed by its ponderous mass the 
almost immovable heresies that endeavored to sap its 
deep foundations ; and though it stands alone in these 
latter times, and apart from all human aid to protect it, 
it seems to smile, with the bright look of unfading 
youth, on every effort of the powers of earth and hell 
to upheave it. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
My word," says the Son of God — the promise to sustain 
it, " shall never pass away." 

It may seem to some that I am a pessimist, and that I 
exaggerate the dangers to be apprehended from Infidelity. 



INTRODUCTION. 



25 



I mean, therefore, in this work fully to discuss the ques- 
tion, to lay open, with an unsparing hand, the cancerous 
growth that is gnawing away almost imperceptibly the 
vitals of our Christian civilization ; to tear off the artifi- 
cial flowers and the frippery tinsel of fine phrases and 
dazzling figures of speech and polished verses, that cover, 
like the whited sepulchres described by our Divine Lord 
(Matthew xxiii. 27), the foul corruption that is poisoning 
the heart's blood of nations ; to expose the hollowness of 
those fine-sounding names — " the supremacy of reason," 
"glorious liberty of free-thought," " universal brother- 
hood," which for the last few hundred years have lured 
so many brave and honest and confiding hearts to de- 
struction. 

The Catholic Church has been assailed with the most 
foul abuse, from the very beginning of her warfare with 
these hateful delusions. Luther was not particularly 
choice in the language in which he described the " debas- 
ing superstitions" and "the abominations of those who 
bowed the knee to the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse ;" 
and those who praise his contempt and low vituperation 
of the everlasting spouse of God have, even up to the 
present hour, not been behindhand with their apostle 
in heaping up execration and abuse on the Church 
founded by Jesus Christ. It will not be difficult to show 
that all these ugly names were as senseless as the cries of 
" wooden shoes and brass money," so dear to the frenzied 
mob in the excitement of the Gordon riots. 

But do I hope to convince those who shout, with all 
the fierce zeal of Orangeism, " No Popery" that this zeal 
is misplaced % No ; but I believe that those who are not 
maddened with the spirit of party, however bitterly they 
may, from long-nursed prejudices, hate the Catholic 



26 



INTRODUCTION. 



Church, will, if they venture to read this book, reserve 
some of their honest indignation and abhorrence for that 
Infidelity which is striving by every means to annihilate 
Christianity. They may even learn to understand that 
the old Church is now, as she was in the beginning, the 
uncompromising foe of all who say anathema to Jesus 
Christ, and so may be disposed to allow her in her own 
way to fight the battles of the Lord, whom they profess 
to love above all things. 

When I read over in the newspapers, the heads and 
points of the sermons delivered by Protestant ministers 
in South Africa, on the occasion of the late centenary of 
Luther, the savage abuse of the Holy Catholic Church 
and the gushing laudations of Free-thought, I could 
easily account for the strong feelings of the unthinking 
and uneducated classes against the Church. 

These accept, without doubt or question, what they 
hear from their teachers. While they fancy they are 
thinking for themselves, and wondering how " Papists" 
can be so deluded as to hear and obey the Church, they 
fail to see that they are themselves led and driven, like a 
herd of animals who " have no understanding," by falli- 
ble men, the slaves of bitter prejudices. If these blind 
teachers would honestly answer the question, "Are you 
sure, beyond doubt, that the Roman Catholic Church is 
the enemy of Christ and His pure doctrine ?" they should 
be bound in truth and conscience to say, " We are not. 
■We may be wrong, and, for all we know with certainty, 
the old Church may be as right now as she was when she 
received the commission from our Divine Lord to teach 
all nations, and treasured the promise of the perpetual 
guidance of the Holy Spirit in her discharge of this 
duty." 



HSTTKODUCTION. 



27 



When men never think of these things, never inquire 
into the true state of the case as between legitimate and 
infallible teaching and that which is assumed and irre- 
sponsible and doubtful, but are swayed by the mere feel- 
ing or passion of the hour, it would be vain to appeal to 
their reason and judgment. " They know not what they 
do." They are like the excited crowd who, at the dicta- 
tion of the Pharisees, yelled aloud for the blood of Christ. 
He prayed for them because of their ignorance. So does 
the Catholic Church pray for those who ignorantly per- 
secute her. Our Divine Lord said to His Apostles, that 
a day would come when men would honestly believe that 
they were doing God service by persecuting them to 
death. I have no doubt that many who know nothing of 
the Catholic Church but what they have heard from 
fanatical teachers, are in the same position. When I 
hear such as these cry out " Away with the Church !" and 
" Down with Popery !" I cannot help liking their expres- 
sion of strong and earnest feeling. As Dr. Johnson 
expresses it, " I like strong haters" — that is to say, men 
who earnestly hate what in their blind prejudice they 
believe to be vile and contemptible. This is a thousand 
times preferable to that smile " from the teeth outward," 
which I sometimes notice on the face of reverend teach- 
ers who, while they rave against the Catholic Church 
from the pulpit and in meeting, profess to be animated 
with the kindest feelings toward her "misguided 
children." 

There is no hope in my mind that this book will pro- 
duce any good effect on such as these. They ought 
from their reading to know better ; they should be able 
to combat their fierce prejudices so far as to acknowledge 
that the old Church, which is attracting to itself some of 



28 



INTRODUCTION. 



the most learned and holy of other commimions, cannot 
be the mass of deformity they love to represent it. It is 
much to be feared that, with all their rigorous denuncia- 
tions of Rome, they are sinning against the light ; and 
that therefore they are inexcusable, and not likely to 
profit by a word in season. I hope better things from 
their disciples, for I cannot help thinking that, if honest 
men who really mean to think for themselves and to be 
fair and just in their estimate of their fellow-men, catch 
a glimpse of the real facts of the case between legitimate 
authority and unprincipled rebellion, they will pause in 
their judgment, and learn to look with some respect upon 
the old Church, and be disposed to profit by her solemn 
and repeated warnings against the dangers of Infidelity. 
I must confess that this thought, and the hope it 
enkindled, was not the least among the many induce- 
ments that urged me to write this book. 

If those who imagine that I exaggerate the dangers of 
Infidelity will obtain information concerning the progress 
of Free-thought, and its consequences in the United 
States, they will be convinced that the evils to which I 
mean to call attention in these pages can scarcely be 
exaggerated. 

The language of Ingersoll in his public lectures, of Dr. 
Adler in his sermons, and of the Rev. O. B. Frothingham 
in his lectures and essays, is, to a believer in revela- 
tion, of the most daringly blasphemous character that can 
be imagined. These upholders of Free-thought, especi- 
ally the first mentioned, assail the Bible and the God of 
the Bible with an energy that seems almost demoniacal. 
The old objections, some of them as old as the time of 
Julian, and Celsus, and Porphyry, are dressed up in the 
most popular and taking form. Drollery, caricature, 



INTRO DUCTION. 



29 



anything that will make the large audiences laugh at 
what Christians hold most sacred, are freely used in this 
unholy conflict with the inspired writings. The printed 
lectures are circulated throughout the States, and are 
eagerly read by young people, who desire to root out of 
their minds every vestige of reverent faith. Colonel 
Ingersoll does not hesitate to call the Almighty " revealed 
to us in the Sacred Scriptures" "a fiend and a monster." 
He tells the crowds of intelligent men and women who 
throng to hear him, and greet his sayings with much 
applause, that "he hates a God of that kind;" and he 
declares that he will never deliver a lecture in which he 
will not denounce, in the strongest and plainest terms, 
"the infamy of the atonement !" He is, he says, a reader 
of the Bible. "He has wasted a whole year in reading 
it through," but only " to expose its lies," and "because it 
is the basis of the infamy of the atonement." 

This is simply frightful; but is it not the natural out- 
come of Free-thought ? Private judgment, carried to its 
legitimate and logical consequences, means nothing more 
or less than pure Individualism ; and Individualism is 
only another name for Rationalism. 

It is not the Word of God, enlightening every indi- 
vidual, as is sentimentally supposed, but every individual 
giving that meaning to the Word of God that pleases 
himself, and falls in with the views suggested by his own 
imagination or his own feelings. This man forms his 
peculiar notions of sin and of Divine justice as if he 
fully understood the Infinite Sanctity of the All-pure and 
Perfect Being who " has made all things well." He finds 
a mistake in the Bible here, and another there. " It is 
wrong for the Almighty to bestow free-will upon His 
rational creatures. It is wrong for God to establish any 



30 



IlSTTRODUCTIOlSr. 



law that is opposed to man's natural propensities." 
" Why," he asks, " should not man do as he likes ?" An- 
other will, in the exercise of his private judgment, and in 
the glorious possession of his untrammelled liberty, scoff 
at authority and creeds and formularies, and rush into 
Mormonism, or any other 'ism that takes his fancy. By 
what right will that Protestantism which rebelled against 
the Church — the only Church then existing, the Church 
established by Christ, the Church of the promises, the 
Church which our Divine Saviour commands us to hear 
and obey under pain of eternal separation from Him — 
how, I say, will Protestantism, this rebellious child, 
attempt to check the wayward fancies of her rebellious 
offspring ? "What is there to restrain the proud self- 
sufficiency which, once its whims are gratified, goes on 
ever wanting more ? Must it not end naturally and logi- 
cally in self- worship, and come practically to the same 
conclusion as Ingersoll and his fellows — that Humanity 
is the only real religion ? " Why," says this leader of 
Free-thought, " I could beat the Ten Commandments." 
And no doubt he might indulge the fancy that he could 
improve the whole creation, and arrange the world much 
better, had he been consulted in the work. 

There is no limit to human pride. It is the origin of 
all evil. " I shall be like to the Most High," thought 
Lucifer ; and the first temptation suggested by him to 
our first parents was, " Ye shall be as gods." 

What is the latest outcome of this Rationalism, as it is 
propounded by the teachers of scientific Positivism in 
Great Britain ? This— that life is not worth living ; that 
the present world, with its varied conditions between ex- 
cessive wealth on the one hand and squalid poverty on the 
other, is a huge mistake ; that since the strong arm of 



INTRODUCTION. 



31 



power, with its ponderous guns and weapons of precision, 
and inventions for wholesale destruction, is a check on 
Socialism and Communism and Nihilism, and the other 
imaginary remedies for human ills, the sooner the whole 
human race dies out the better for man. 

Who does not see the practical consequences of this 
teaching ? Is it not that it is a good thing to compass 
the ruin of society, and that he deserves well of his 
fellow-men who will disseminate, by voice and pen, the 
moral poison that will corrupt and waste away all healthy 
growth, break asunder the ties that unite the family, 
check the birth of children, and reduce the civilized 
nations of the earth to that condition which, years ago, 
wrung from the eloquent Lacordaire, while deploring the 
miseries of France, " Show me a man among the effete 
population of our great cities, and I may yet believe in 
the regeneration of my country." 

When, in this once glorious land, Free-thought and 
Rationalism have brought about such a state of things 
that it is enacted by law that " citizens are to be reared 
like cattle and to be broken-in like horses/' since, according 
to the Communistic theory, children are not the children 
of their fathers and mothers, what may we not expect as 
these principles are more widely diffused throughout 
Europe ? " The moral unity of France, 5 ' according to 
the views of the men now in power, means the extinction 
of all forms of religious belief, thought, consciousness, or 
moral life. The French citizen must be taught, trained, 
fashioned, and drilled by an education, in which the 
existence of God is a superstition, the name of God an 
equivocal term, and the moral law a group of conven- 
tional usages. What is the obvious and natural conse- 
quence of this irreligion and progress of Free-thought ? 



32 



INTRODUCTION. 



I answer in the elocpent words of M. Jules Simon : 
"The miserable and sterile society that such education 
would produce, would be in France an edition of one 
man in thirty-six millions of copies — such unity is death." 
And he adds these significant words : " It is not the loss 
of a battle or the annihilation of an army that begins 
the fall of a people : a people dies only by the relaxation 
of its morals, by abandoning its manly habits, by the 
effacement of its character, through the invasion of 
Egoism and Scepticism. It dies of its corruption. It 
does not die of its wounds." 

Men may think that such principles will never be 
adopted by the English-speaking races. But this is a 
great mistake. When the Eight Honorable Anthony 
John Mundella, Vice-President of the Committee of 
Council, recently declared that " these gigantic efforts" in 
France were worthy of imitation, and that the thoughts and 
actions of legislatures are constantly tending in the same 
direction (I quote from a speech of the President of the 
Board of Trade, reported in the Daily Post of the 18th 
of last January), all thoughtful men who watch the work- 
ing of the School Boards in England may well be anxious. 

But, as I said in the beginning of this Introduction, 
there are few who think in this busy age. Men are so 
intoxicated with the triumphs of material progress, so 
wrapt up in the pursuit of wealth, so bent on the " pride 
of life," that they allow the public prints and news- 
papers to do all the thinking for them. Their only 
ambition is to keep an courant with the rapid stream 
that is carrying them on to Eternity, and so they reach 
it unawares : or, if the distant prospect catches their 
view, they ridicule its terrors, as they would the hob- 
goblin stories of childhood. 



INTRODUCTION. 



33 



And what is it that has led to this strange perversion 
of ideas ? Eminently, the frivolity and thoughtlessness 
of the times in which we live — the logical consequences 
of revolt against legitimate authority; and finally, the 
absence of any power to check the headlong course to- 
ward Rationalism and Unbelief. The learned Schleir- 
macher has well said, " Protestantism, in the presence of 
Rationalism, is like an iceberg gradually melting before 
the sun." 

I have seen the process of its melting in my own ex- 
perience of fifty years. Critical analysis of the Bible, 
when the Holy Book stands alone, and unprotected by 
the shade of " the everlasting Church," is doing its work 
rapidly and noiselessly. Block by block, it is slipping 
away into the seething waters of hostile public opinion. 
Inexorable Rationalism is, with the magnifying-glasses 
of science, concentrating the rays of its searching exami- 
nation on every weak point of the helplessly floating 
structure ; mystery after mystery is dissolving. Now it 
is the sanction of the Divine law. A few years ago it 
was the sacramental system. Next it will be the Trinity, 
and probably the whole Athanasian Creed, that will 
perish under this dissolving power. Then, when the 
last block of Bible Christianity shall have disappeared, 
and the great unbounded ocean of Free-thought will 
have dashed from the world the traditions of the old 
Faith, there will remain only " the pillar and ground of 
truth" to preserve the last element of conservatism in 
society. 

If men would only think — if, while they are talking 
about liberality and freedom of opinion, they would only 
cast from their eyes the scales of prejudice and bigotry, 
and really exercise their judgment, how soon would 



34 



INTRODUCTION. 



those of good- will be brought to recognize, with wonder 
and admiration, "the everlasting Church" — the mother 
of all sound doctrine, and that Catholic Christianity, 
taught by the Apostles, and which will be taught and 
explained and developed by their lawful successors to 
the consummation of the world. 

In the first Chapter I purpose to give this ideal of a 
Christian-teaching Church, as it exists before my mental 
vision, to show what the Catholic Church really is, and 
how, although human in its elements, it bravely fulfils 
its mission under the guidance and inspiration of the 
Spirit of Truth, which, according to the promise of her 
Divine Founder, is to abide with her forever. I hope 
then to dispose of the false notions given of her by her 
enemies ; to show that it is the distortion and the cari- 
caturing of Catholic Christianity that has encouraged 
the growth and development of the numerous " isms 5 ' of 
the age; to take these one by one, and analyze them 
and point out their holiowness and corruption ; and thus 
gradually lead those who do not know the Church to 
look towards her, in the midst of the deluge of evils that 
are threatening this unfortunate world, as the only ark 
of safety for future generations. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

AND 

MODERN UNBELIEF. 



CHAPTER I. 
Catholic Christianity and its Contrasts, 

I CAN never forget the impression made upon my 
mind, many years ago, when, in the course of a long 
sailing voyage from the colony to England, I was asked 
by a fellow-passenger to explain what was meant by the 
Immaculate Conception. Although the person who 
asked me did not conceal her strong feelings about what 
she called the " fuss" Catholics made in all that related 
to the Blessed Yirgin — " as if, 55 she said, " there was 
anything more remarkable in Mary than in any other 
woman." 

I satisfied myself that she wished to have a thorough 
explanation on the point, and I explained it as clearly as 
I could. I dwelt particularly on the sanctity of God our 
Saviour, showing that though He might, for love of us, 
" annihilate 5 ' Himself, He could not part in the smallest 
degree with His infinite purity ; and that, although His 
chief work in the Atonement was to satisfy for our sins, 
there could be in Him no actual participation in sin. I 
then proceeded to show that God the Son had really 
allied Himself to our human nature, that the flesh of 



36 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



Christ was the flesh of Mary, and that the Precious Blood 
wherewith He had washed away the sins of the world 
actually flowed in the veins of His Virgin Mother. He 
was truly the son of Mary, as truly as He was the only- 
begotten of the Father from all eternity — man to suffer 
and God to save ; and from this intimate union with 
her she must, by an extraordinary privilege, have been 
not only, as the angel called her, "full of grace," but 
never, even for a moment of her personal existence, sub- 
ject to sin in any shape or form. Had she been, like all 
other human creatures, " conceived in iniquity and born 
a child of wrath, 55 and consequently, though it were only 
for a moment, the slave of Satan, there would have been 
an essential barrier against the perfect alliance of an all- 
holy Divine nature and the inherent sinfulness of human 
nature. And I went on to explain that it had ever been 
the belief of the Fathers and Saints of the Catholic 
Church that, when her soul was in the first instant united 
to the germ of her body, she was, through the merits of 
the Redeemer to be born of her, by a special act of 
Divine Providence preserved from the consequences of 
the Fall. She had never been for one single instant the 
creature and slave of original sin. I further exj)lained to 
her — for she was a woman of rare intelligence — the cause 
of the difference of opinion between the leading minds 
of Catholic schools of divinity on the point, and showed 
her that in this all were agreed — that the Virgin Mother 
of Jesus Christ had never been sullied by the stain of 
even original guilt. 

I remember well her answer when I had finished, in 
which the instincts of a true Christian, believing firmly 
in the Divinity of Christ, revealed itself : " It must be 
so — it could not be otherwise. IVho could possibly believe 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 37 



that the pure blood of Jesus ever bore the slightest taint 
of evil?" 

I remember too, which is much more to the point, the 
remark of her husband who was present : " Yes, my dear, 
it seems all right as Dr. Ricards puts it ; but then you 
should know that Catholic priests [I was not Bishop then] 
are trained to put their doctrine in any form that is likely 
to please, and not to be over-particular about the truth, 
provided they can gain a convert to their creed." It was 
hard to bear patiently this insult, for it was the first time 
that the odious charge, " The end justifies the means," 
was applied to me personally. Alas ! I have learned since 
to know, as every Catholic Bishop and priest knows only 
too well, that when he ventures to explain the doctrines 
of his Church to those who are not of her communion, he 
must be prepared to subject himself, if not to the open 
charge, at least to the grave suspicion of insincerity and 
deception. 

This thought weighs upon me now, and almost deters 
me from the task I have set before me. If what I have 
to say about the Holy Catholic Church will appear reason- 
able and just to non-Catholics who may read this book, 
they will in all likelihood say I am not to be believed, 
I am only faithful to the lessons of deception in which I 
have been trained, by attempting to give a false notion 
of the Faith I profess. 

I can only protest against so cruel and unjust an insult, 
and declare before God, who sees the secrets of my heart 
and will hereafter judge me, that I loathe and detest any- 
thing like deception in so grave a matter as declaring 
" the Faith that is in me ;" that I abominate the princi- 
ple, no matter by whom taught, if it is indeed taught by 
any reasonable man or body of men, that " the end justi- 



38 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



fies the means." I hold most firmly that a lie is under 
all circumstances unlawful in itself ; and that no amount 
of seeming good, or real good, that would be effected by 
telling a wilful lie could justify the crime. 

Though strongly tempted to retort, I will confine my- 
self simply to this solemn declaration, that I have rarely, 
if ever, seen any doctrine of the Catholic Church truth- 
fully and fairly stated by her enemies. It is this mis- 
representation — whether it be wilful, or have its origin in 
ignorance, I cannot say — that is the chief cause of the 
success, before the unthinking multitude, of the assaults 
of Rationalism upon Christianity. 

It is hard to conceive how wide-spread is this ignorance. 
But when we consider that those who are prejudiced 
against her claims to authoritative teaching, to her intol- 
erance of doctrine opposed to her own, and who hate her 
honestly on account of the false charges of immorality so 
often urged against her, cannot take up one of the books 
of our apologists without feeling all the influence of these 
prejudices and this hatred ; that they are disposed to see 
evil lurking wherever any particular doctrine or practice 
commends itself to their judgment ; and that there are 
many of her worst enemies who publicly boast, as I 
have heard some Protestant ministers boast, that they 
have never read a Catholic book — the wonder is that 
those outside her pale know anything of her true char- 
acter. 

A clever writer of the day, — William Hurrell Mallock, 
— not a Catholic, well says in reference to this ignorance : 
" In this country [England] the popular conception of 
Rome has been so distorted by our familiarity with Pro- 
testantism, that the true conception of her is something 
quite strange to us. Our divines have exhibited her to 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 39 



us as though she were a lapsed Protestant sect, and they 
have attacked her for being false to doctrines that were 
neyer really hers. They have failed to see that the first 
and essential difference which separates her from them 
lies primarily, not in any special dogma, hut in the 
authority on which all her dogmas rest. Protestants bas- 
ing their religion on the Bible solely, have conceived that 
Catholics of course profess to do so likewise, and have 
covered them with invective for being traitors to their 
supposed profession. But the Church's primary doc- 
trine is her own perpetual infallibility. She is inspired, 
she declares, by the same Spirit that inspired the Bible, 
and her voice is equally with the Bible the voice of God. 
This theory, however, upon which her whole fabric rests, 
popular Protestantism either ignores altogether, or treats 
it as if it were a modern superstition, which, so far from 
being essential to the Church's system, is, on the contrary, 
inconsistent with it. Looked at in this way, Rome, to 
the Protestant's mind, has seemed naturally to be a mass 
of superstitions and dishonesties ; and it is this view of 
her, strangely enough, which our modern advanced 
thinkers have accepted without question. Though they 
have trusted the Protestants in nothing else, they have 
trusted them here. They have taken the Protestant's 
word for it, that Protestantism is more reasonable than 
Eomanism ; and they think therefore that if they have 
destroyed the former, a fortiori they have destroyed 
the latter." 

This one ground of misconception, so ably put by 
Mallock, vitiates the whole view of the Church to out- 
siders. Protestants, laying it down as a matter of fact 
that cannot be disputed, that the Bible and the Bible 
only is the sole rule of Faith, — though strange to say this 



40 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 

rule is nowhere found in the Sacred Scriptures, — proceed 
to show with unbounded confidence that such and such 
Catholic practices and doctrines are un scriptural — that is 
to say, opposed to their peculiar views of Scripture, and 
therefore to be condemned. 

But the Catholic Church teaches now, as she ever 
taught, that she was fully established long before a word 
of w the New Testament was written, that she is not the 
creation of the Bible, and that it belongs to her, as the 
original guardian entrusted with its keeping, to expound 
and declare its meaning. Hence, as Mallock sums up the 
argument, " If we would obtain a true view of the general 
character of Catholicism, we must begin by making a 
clean sweep of all the views that, as outsiders, we have 
been taught to entertain about her. We must in the 
first place learn to conceive of her as a living spiritual 
body, as infallible and as authoritative now as she ever 
was, with her eyes undimmed and her strength not 
abated, continuing to grow still, as she has continued to 
grow hitherto ; and the growth of the new dogmas that 
she may from time to time enunciate we must learn to 
see are, from her own stand-point, signs of life and not 
signs of corruption. 5 ' 

Such is " the everlasting Church, 55 the Church of the 
creeds, the Church founded by Jesus Christ, whose life 
and soul is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, which, 
according to the eternal promise of her Founder, must 
abide with her forever. Such is the Holy Catholic 
Church as she appears in my eyes, and as she appears to 
all believers in her Divine institution. I see her include 
in her vast extent the teaching body and the taught. 
She offers me the Sacred Scriptures, which she has faith- 
fully preserved from the beginning. She guarantees to 



CATHOLIC CHKISTIANTTY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 41 



me their authenticity and integrity. She declares them 
to be the inspired Word of God, and offers to explain to 
me their meaning — often obscure, and hard to be under- 
stood. In the discharge of this duty of teaching I know 
she cannot lead me astray, for does not the Spirit of Truth 
teach her all truth and abide with her forever ? Hence 
in the Catholic Church I can find rest for my weary soul 
under the shadow of her wings. There is no need to 
spend my days in doubting and disputing. From her 
lips I can know " the truth as it is in Jesus." If there 
is anything beyond my comprehension in the mysteries 
which she proposes, I know without doubt that she is 
telling me what God has told her about Himself. I am 
not distracted with the thought that He may have meant 
me to understand this revelation in some other way in 
which it would be possible for my finite reason to receive 
it. If the proud feeling that sometimes awakens the 
primeval temptation, " I shall be like to the Most High," 
comes to disturb me, and prompts me to rebel against 
being obliged to believe what I do not comprehend, 
knowing that God cannot deceive me, I reason with my- 
self and say, u Is it not fitting, is it not natural and right, 
that I cannot form an adequate idea of the all-perfect 
Spirit who has made all things ? If I clearly saw His 
Divine attributes, and understood the Divine nature, and 
the Trinity of Persons, and the Incarnation, and the whole 
economy of the Atonement, then I might indeed doubt if 
the religion that was so accommodated to my limited 
perceptions was really from God." 

Hence I see that to receive the message of God con- 
cerning these exalted things without the least doubt, as 
" the evidence of things which appear not," I am paying 
to God the greatest honor which a rational creature can 



42 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



offer to his Creator. If it be objected that it is degrading 
to believe, with the full assent of the mind, what is unin- 
telligible, I answer, Yes, it would be degrading to express 
belief in it if the grounds for this confidence were not in 
every respect satisfactory. 

The blind man believes, on the testimony of his friends, 
things that are perfectly unintelligible to him, and one 
might say absolutely contradictory to his limited sense. 
Place the man born blind before a mirror, and tell him 
that in a moment a perfect, lif e-like image of himself is 
produced, and not only of himself, but of every object 
around him, you ask him to believe a greater miracle in 
his regard than we can well imagine. If he test the 
alleged fact by the sense of touch, he finds evidence to 
his mind of the absolute falsity of what is proposed to 
him. It is impossible, he feels, that many objects around 
him and his own person can be depicted on the flat and 
uniform surface beneath his hand. But the testimony 
of this unintelligible fact satisfies his doubts, and he 
believes reasonably, and without the least blame, the 
truth that is set before him. Nay, more : he would, in 
the judgment of all men, though he cannot possibly 
understand the reasons derived from the laws of reflection 
of light, judge stupidly and obstinately if he preferred 
his own opinion in opposition to the positive testimony 
of those who concur in stating the simple fact. Had we 
a sixth or seventh sense, whereby we could estimate the 
real value of supernatural things, we might question the 
testimony of God, announced by His infallible Church ; 
but being more ignorant than the blind man in the case 
alleged, it is obstinate folly to resist the testimony. "When 
men clearly comprehend their own dual existence, the 
nature of the soul, its ubiquity in the material body, what 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 43 



a spirit is, what is life, and a thousand cognate truths, 
then indeed it would be degrading to believe, in opposi- 
tion to this supernatural knowledge, whatever was clearly 
and unmistakably opposed to it. But when the truth 
of God's teaching, which is immeasurably beyond the 
testimony of man, affirms the fact of incomprehensible 
dogmas, it is worse than folly and stupidity to argue 
against the possibility of their existence. 

I remember once a scientific gentleman undertaking to 
prove to me that the invocation of the saints, as proposed 
by the Catholic Church, necessarily involved attributing 
to the saints qualities belonging only to God, and the 
consequence that we Catholics believed the Blessed 
Virgin and the saints to be real gods, and offering a 
wager that he would prove his argument to a perfect 
demonstration. Though I would not bet on the point, 
I defied him to his proof. It was no doubt very simple 
and satisfactory to his own judgment. " There are thou- 
sands, perhaps tens of thousands, at this moment," he 
said, "in different parts of the world, invoking the inter- 
cession of the Blessed Virgin. You believe that she can 
hear them all. Therefore," he concluded, u you manifestly 
attribute to her omniscience and ubiquity — attributes 
which all reasonable men confine to the Divine nature." 
He felt more than humiliated by my answer. I said, 
" Yes, your argument would be good as regards beings in 
the present state of existence, where knowledge is derived 
through the senses. But we are speaking of beings who 
have c shuffled off this mortal coil ; ? who exist in another 
mode of existence of which we can form no idea; who, 
really enjoying personal life [for he believed in the im- 
mortality of the soul], see without eyes, hear without 
ears, and stand in no need of matter to communicate with 



44 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



each other. First explain to me" I said, " this mode of 
existence; describe a spirit to nie, and its relations to 
space. Put all this clearly before me, and then we may 
talk of demonstration." 

Men may be highly scientific, as far as this physical 
world is concerned, and yet fools compared to the simple 
immble Catholic who never thinks of questioning the 
teaching of the Church, which our Divine Lord commands 
us to hear under pain of eternal separation from Him. 
The worst of it is, that men learned in science, when an 
argument of this kind is pressed to its legitimate conclu- 
sion, give way to irritation of temper, and forthwith 
commence abusing the Church, and repudiating her claims 
to teach us. 

" She is," they say, "the enemy of progress; she is 
behind the age ; she is blind to the discoveries of science ; 
she won't move forward with the human family; she 
teaches now as she did eighteen hundred years ago : how 
then can any one of common-sense listen patiently to her 
old-fashioned talk, and be satisfied with her antiquated 
nonsense? Then she is so perverse and obstinate and 
intolerant. She condemns every one to eternal fire that 
will not listen to her stupid mumblings. She persecuted 
while she dared ; but, thanks to Free-thought [' aye there's 
the rub 5 ], we have through the glorious apostle of 
liberty, the mighty Luther, flung her authority to the 
winds. We will judge for ourselves ; and if our Divine 
Lord commanded us to hear her, He did not know how 
silly and foolish and superstitious and credulous she would 
become in the course of ages. We are certain that, if 
He again appeared on earth, He would recognize as His 
true disciples only those who have learned in the school 
of progress to believe in positive facts, and what their 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 45 



good practical common-sense accepts. He would care 
nothing for the senseless and unreasoning crowd who 
take their religion on trust, and are always pointing out 
the necessity of simple obedience to legitimate authority, 
and submission to the Divine will and its ordinances, and 
taking up the cross daily and bearing it in the spirit of 
that simple and humble docility which is so opposed to 
self-respect and the innate spirit of manly independence." 

Let me examine for a moment seriously the meaning 
of these outbursts of ill-tempered and inconsiderate abuse 
of the venerable Church of ages. Are they really well 
grounded ? Is there at least something sound and sensi- 
ble on which they rest ? 

Suppose that I admit that the Catholic Church teaches 
in this nineteenth century of her existence the same 
doctrines which our Divine Lord and His Apostles 
taught, I am met with an outcry on every hand dissent- 
ing violently from this proposition. If I say she has 
toned down the primitive doctrine and adapted it to the 
spirit of the age, there is the same loud outcry of dissent. 
It is difficult to determine, in this conflict of contradictory 
opinions, what is precisely the charge conveyed in this 
reproach of the Church being in opposition to the prog- 
ress of society. 

"It seems," as Father Oakley so admirably puts it, 
" that one of the most striking marks of her truth, in the 
presence of a noisy and frivolous generation, is the fact 
that she is the inheritor of the reproaches heaped on 
her Divine Founder. Men do not care nowadays to 
spend time in considering the marks of Unity, Sanctity, 
Apostolicity, and Catholicity. They have almost lost the 
meaning of these terms, but a point like this ' he that 
runs may read.' Just as our Divine Lord was assailed by 



46 CATHOLIC CHKISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



His enemies with the most contradictory charges, so is 
His Church. His words are literally fulfilled : 6 You 
shall be hated by all men for My name's sake. The dis- 
ciple is not above his master 5 (Matt. x. 22,24). There 
exists beyond dispute a wide-spread unreasoning hate 
against the Catholic Church, and the sources of this hatred 
are as varied as are the conditions of mankind. It is a 
giant bugbear, which has the faculty of transforming it- 
self into a thousand shapes, as reflected on the retina of a 
thousand different eyes. It has one side of odiousness to 
the statesman, another to the civil governor, another to 
the man of business, another to the men of the world, 
another to the family man, another to the profligate, 
another to the rigorist. Some dislike one of its doctrines, 
some another, while some object to all alike. There is 
also a large class of persons who have no definite idea 
about the Catholic Church at all, but abhor it merely be- 
cause it is unpopular. It must be wrong, they say, or it 
could not be so generally hated" ("The Church of the 
Bible," by the Eev. Frederick Oakley, M.A.). 

Some say that the Catholic Church is too lax in her 
morality; others that she is the inhuman tyrant and 
butcher of conscience. Some maintain that she is the 
friend of despotism, the extravagant upholder of Right 
Divine, and others that she is eminently disloyal, and the 
secret fomenter of anarchy and rebellion. Surely all 
these contradictory charges cannot be true at the same 
time. There is one fact and it cannot be doubted, and 
that is, that the Church, from whatever causes the feeling 
may arise, is an object of hatred to those who are not of 
her. 

In this respect she stands forth distinct from all other 
institutions in the world. She is eminently hated alike 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 47 



by unbelievers in Christianity, and by the various and mul- 
tiform sects that differ from her in their belief. It may 
be safely said that the one point in which all sects of 
Christians cordially unite is their hatred of the Roman 
Catholic Church. This open and avowed hatred is, I 
maintain, one of the most striking marks that she is the 
true Church of Christ. The Church of the days of the 
Apostles was similarly hated. " Wonder not, brethren,'' 
says St. John, "if the world hate you" (1 John iii. 13). 
And the causes and character of this hatred are the same 
as they were in the time of our Divine Lord : " If the 
world hate you, know ye that it hated Me before you. 
If you had been of the world, the world would love its 
own ; but because you are not of the world, but I have 
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth 
you " (John xv. 18, 19). Do not these words of our 
Divine Lord seem exactly to hit the point ? For if there 
be one cause, more than another, the chief source of the 
world's hatred against the Church it is this — that she is 
not of the world. 

For what does all this ill-tempered abuse, which I 
noticed above, come to but to this very particular ? The 
Church is old-fashioned, out of time with progress, always 
in the way of the world. Therefore the world hates her. 

Well, let us ask, is the Church quite wrong in teaching 
the same truths that excited this strong feeling against 
the Redeemer ? Should she change her doctrine with the 
popular views and fashionable theories of the times? 
Should she accommodate her principles to the ideas of 
Free-thought ? Should she preach society without God, 
government without God, education without God, the 
family without God, sanction divorce, the rule of might 
without right, and the unprincipled logic of accomplished 



48 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTEASTS. 



facts, and all the other wild fancies of unbridled 
rationalism that are desolating mankind ? Ho, a thousand 
times, no. " Heaven and earth shall pass away," but the 
words of Him who is " the way, the truth, and the life " 
shall never pass away. The morality of the Gospel, as 
explained by the Catholic Church, is founded on truths 
that are as fixed and eternal as the God who revealed 
them, and therefore it can never change. And if the 
Church is as determined now as she was in the beginning, 
" when kings of the earth stood up, and the princes 
assembled together against the Lord and against His 
Christ ;" if to the threats of angry human power she ex- 
claims with the Apostles, "Judge ye if it be just to hear 
you rather than God," and goes on her steady way, like 
the wise householder, bringing forth from her treasury 
" old things and new," as indifferent to the world's cen- 
sure as to its applause — why should she be charged with 
stupid obstinacy, and perversity and intolerance ? Is not 
the course she follows the proper one to fulfil her high 
mission with unshaken fidelity, and, like her Divine 
Founder, to brave the world's hatred by disdaining to 
accommodate herself to the world's ever-changing and 
unstable ways ? 

Much is made of this cry of intolerance. But is not 
truth necessarily intolerant ? There is no greater enemy 
to truth than easy and pliant indifference. Old Pagan 
Rome could afford to offer a home to the false deities of 
the conquered nations, because she did not possess the 
true religion herself. But the Catholic Church, possess- 
ing the immutable principles of truth, believing that she 
is guided in her interpretation of this truth by the Holy 
Spirit abiding with her, can make no sacrifice of this 
priceless treasure. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 49 



" She would therefore persecute/ 5 it is objected. " If 
she had the power she would burn men at the stake if 
they refused her teaching. 59 The Catholic Church never 
persecuted, but tried by every means in her power to 
moderate the spirit of those times that regarded persecu- 
tion as a necessity against the ravages of error and the 
levelling principles that sprung from Free-thought. Let 
men who are forever howling over the abominations of 
the Inquisition think seriously over these words of Hal- 
lam, and they will learn to be silent over the inhuman bar- 
barities of past ages : " Persecution is the deadly origi- 
nal sin of the Eef ormed churches, that cools every honest 
soul for the cause in proportion as his reading becomes 
more extensive" (Hallam's " Constitutional History," vol. 
i., page 95). 

"But," continues the objector, "you cannot deny that 
she condemns to everlasting fire those who do not receive 
her teaching." I answer: The Catholic Church con- 
demns no one to hell. She only declares that Faith is a 
necessary condition to salvation, and that Faith must of 
its very nature be one, and that Faith includes all the 
doctrines which our Divine Lord commanded the Apos- 
tles to announce to the world ; and consequently that 
they who obstinately refuse to accept this Faith expose 
themselves, by the ordinance of Christ, to eternal ruin. 
"He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Matt. xvi. 
16). The Church proclaims the terrible law laid down 
by her Divine Founder, and by every means in her power 
endeavors to guard all who hear her voice from the dread 
consequences of its violation. She has not made the law, 
for it belongs only to the Almighty Lord and Master of 
all things to determine a law like this involving so severe 
a sanction. The Church does not condemn any individ- 



50 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 

ual, nor judge whether lie is " worthy of love or hatred. 5 ' 
It is Christ Himself, our merciful Redeemer, who, in 
His capacity as Judge of the living and the dead, will 
say to the perversely wicked who had to the end of the 
time of trial preferred the conceits of Free-thought to 
the immutable law of God, " Depart, ye accursed, into 
everlasting fire." "Who is he that shall condemn? 
Christ Jesus who died, yea who rose again, who is at the 
right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" 
(Rom. viii. 34). 

These are some of the charges which are, in angry 
moments, hurled at the venerable Church of God when 
she mildly remonstrates with Christians who prefer toy- 
ing with the creations of -Free-thought to what they call 
her old-fashioned teaching. There are of course many 
others — indeed, their name is legion ; but it would be 
worse than useless to notice them here. 

The main point, the question of questions for all who 
hope for life eternal through the merits of Jesus Christ, 
is to determine whether the Church founded by our 
Divine Lord, which could never fail in her office of 
teaching and expounding His doctrine, has a right divine 
to teach us, and if we are bound to receive her teaching. 
The right to teach with authority, and the duty of simple 
and docile obedience to the teaching body, are principles 
which jar with the restless spirit of the age. I have 
hitherto tried to reconcile them to the prejudices of be- 
lievers. 

To go further would be to enter into the mazes of his- 
torical and polemical argument, which makes the whole 
life of Christians who "will not hear the Church" a 
w T eary, endless round of doubting and disputing and 
protesting. As regards Unbelievers, Rationalists, Agnos* 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 51 



tics, Positivists, Pantheists, and Atheists, I would say to 
any such as may care to look through this book — 

Be sure you set before your eyes as the object of your 
Free-thinking assaults not some peculiar form of Chris- 
tianity, but Catholic Christianity. Don't set up some 
monstrosity or caricature of Christianity tinged with the 
sombre shades of predestination, or decked out with the 
meretricious ornaments of sentimentalism and the glaring 
colors of emotional fervor. It will be easy to bear down 
with your lance of common-sense such lifeless scare- 
crows as these. You may poke them out of the field 
with the lath of ridicule or the light weapon of wit. If 
you are in earnest in supporting the claims of natural 
religion against such travesties of revealed truth as pri- 
vate judgment independent of Church authority has de- 
veloped, you can hardly feel comfort for your inward 
consciousness in such poor triumphs. It will be only 
loss of time, a mere sham-fight with shadowy nothings, 
from which can come no solid, practical advantage. 

Mark well the position of the Catholic Church, and 
you will soon find that you have an adversary worthy of 
your steel. Her ground in the contest is clear and un- 
mistakable. She claims to be the old Church founded 
by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. She claims to be the 
Church of the unfailing promises. She proves her right 
to explain the written Word of God with infallible au- 
thority. Any teaching bodies that dare not make these 
claims can evidently be no teachers or defenders of dog- 
matic supernatural Revelation. "Any supernatural religion 
that renounces its claim to absolute infallibility it is clear 
can profess to be a semi-revelation only." I quote again 
from Mallock : " It is a hybrid thing, partly natural and 
partly supernatural, and it thus practically has all the 



52 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



qualities of a religion that is wholly natural. In so far 
as it professes to be revealed, it of course professes to be 
infallible ; but if the revealed part be, in the first place, 
hard to distinguish, and, in the second place, hard to 
understand — it may mean many things, and many of 
these things contradictory — it might just as well have 
been never made at all. To make it in any sense an in- 
fallible revelation, or in other words a revelation to us, 
we need a power to interpret the testament that shall 
have equal authority with the testament itself." 

This is putting the truth plainly and fairly, and it is so 
clearly taught by an example that there can be no longer 
any mistake about it. " That example, 3 ' continues this 
writer, " is Protestant Christianity, and the condition to 
which after three centuries, it is now visibly bringing 
itself. It is at last beginning to exhibit to us the true 
result of the denial of infallibility to a religion that pro- 
fesses to be supernatural. We are at last beginning to 
see in it neither the purifier of a corrupted revelation nor 
the corruption of a pure revelation, but the practical 
denier of all revelation whatsoever." 

It will not do for the unbeliever to say with Inger- 
soll, " That God of the Bible is a fiend ; I will have none 
of Him — a God who created hell to punish His creatures 
for faults they could not help, who has taken away from 
human nature all liberty of action, who takes infinite 
pleasure in the tortures of His helpless children," etc., 
etc. This may be the God of Calvinism, but it is not 
the God set before us by Catholic Christianity — far dif- 
ferent. " The Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient 
and of much compassion, and true ; who keepest mercy 
unto thousands; who takest away iniquity, and wicked- 
ness, and sin" (Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7). 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY A1STD ITS CONTRASTS. 53 



These writers who lead the van in natural religion are 
loud in their praises of free-will, natural goodness, and 
natural virtue, as if these qualities of fallen human 
nature were ignored by the religion of the Bible. They 
are no doubt disregarded by the heresies that, in their 
blind zeal against Pelagianisin, destroy the power of the 
human will, and deny it any ability of co-operation with 
Divine grace. Man, according to the stupid upholders 
of these opinions, is like a brute or a tree as far as free- 
will is concerned, and is the helpless victim of necessity, 
cursed and lost eternally by the dread flat of His creator. 
But man, in the fixed belief of Catholic Christianity, is 
endowed with free-will, inclined no doubt to evil by the 
loss of sanctifying grace, but though disinherited, per- 
fectly free in the full possession of his natural faculties, 
and able, through the grace purchased for us all by the 
death of Christ, to regain his lost inheritance, and reign 
forever with God in Heaven. 

I never read anything in the shape of stories of the 
imagination that gave me more heartfelt pleasure than 
those charming pages of Charles Dickens which excite 
our sympathies for the most fallen and uncared-for of the 
human family. There is a germ of good in poor creatures 
like " Joe" in " Bleak House" and " Nancy" in " Oliver 
Twist" that ordinary Christian charity might develop into 
bright flowers fit for paradise. Many of the religious 
orders of the Catholic Church prove by their successful 
labors that this is no sentimental belief, but is in fact 
their raison d'etre. The Rationalists hate and execrate 
cant and hypocrisy and its accompanying vices; and 
Catholic instincts, if they are guided by Christian charity, 
naturally abominate such characters as are represented 



54 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTRASTS. 



under the Heaps, and Pecksniffs, and shepherds, of a false 
and deluded Christianity. 

If Catholic Christianity were only understood by the 
brilliant and gifted leaders of modern Free-thought, and 
studied apart from the wretched and grovelling imitations 
of it founded on animal feeling and gushing sentimen- 
talism, they would fall down and worship it. I can con- 
ceive nothing more pure and beautiful, more worthy of 
God, as far as we can know of His loving mercy, and 
more consoling to poor fallen humanity, than the practical 
teaching of the Catholic Church as it is developed in her 
whole system of belief and morality ; but more bright and 
glorious still, breathing of Heaven and angelic purity, 
meek and humble of heart like the lowly Jesus, self-sac- 
rificing like the Redeemer, as it is eminently exemplified 
in the ecclesiastical state and in the religious orders of 
both sexes. It will be my purpose to bring this truth 
before the reader in the chapters immediately following. 



CATHOLIC CHKISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 55 



CHAPTER II. 



Catholic Christianity and its Mysteries. 



HOSE who take a real interest in the education 



I and training of children find a positive delight in 
meeting occasionally with a bright specimen of unaffected 
candor and simplicity, who, looking into the eyes of the 
teacher with that expression which seems to impart 
intelligence to the faithful hound, timidly yet trustingly 
unfolds the germ of some original thought. If the very 
clever writer who has told us such charming stories about 
" Alice 5 ' and her childish dreams would concentrate his 
marvellous powers of observation on the religious notions 
of gifted children, and set them before the public in his 
attractive style, he would confer a positive blessing on 
the age. I have heard myself such pertinent questions 
put me by a young boy or girl in the catechism class 
that I felt myself for a moment unable to answer, carried 
away as I was by the wistful look of the little questioner 
and the thoughtful words, to analyze the process of 
mental working that had evolved this budding flower of 
fancy. 

What was the deep meaning of the words of our Divine 
Lord, " out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou 
hast perfected praise" (Matt. xxi. 16), or what was the 
vision before the mind of the inspired Psalmist when he 
penned them ? Who shall say for certain when the most 
learned interpreters and commentators differ ? It strikes 




56 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



me however, in relation to the subject of mysteries, 
which I am to treat of in this chapter, that these words 
of our Lord have an intimate connection with those 
addressed to the Apostles fascinated by ambitions dreams 
of future glory — " unless you become as little children, 
you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven" (Matt, 
xviii. 3). He was reproving the proud indignation of 
the chief priests and scribes when He declared that the 
little ones crying out "Hosanna" in the Temple had 
offered to Him "the most perfect praise. 55 It would 
appear from the whole connection that simple, humble, 
child-like Faith is more precious in the sight of God than 
the grandest speculations of proud reason about the 
Divine nature and its attributes. 

The mother-superior of one of our convents told me 
that while she was explaining the mystery of the Trinity 
to a class of youngsters, a bright-eyed, intelligent-looking 
girl said to her, " Mother, how can the three Divine per- 
sons be one person ? There is father, and mother, and 
my big brother at home, and they all love each other so 
fondly, and they all say the same thing to us little ones, 
and they never dispute ; but they are not one. 55 She first 
told the child that the catechism did not say the three 
Persons are one Person, or that three Gods are one God, 
because that would be saying what was manifestly im- 
possible. " It tells us, 55 she went on, " that the three 
Persons have all the one Divine nature. What that 
nature is we cannot clearly understand. It is too great, 
too vast, too immense, for our little minds to grasp it. 
Look around you : it is the great God who has made 
everything you see — this huge earth with all its creatures, 
the heavens above you, the sun and moon and stars, and 
His presence fills all space. If we could comprehend 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 57 



what the great God is, He would then cease to be God. 
He would no longer be the Infinite Being He is. ?? While 
the good nun thus explained the mystery to the won- 
dering child, it required no effort of the imagination to 
mark the effect of this simple teaching on the soul 
sanctified by Baptism, and sweetly disposed by this 
sacrament to supernatural Faith. I could well under- 
stand that the teacher was awed and impressed by the 
reverent expression, and the uplifted eyes, and the 
clasped hands, and that she could scarcely restrain her 
tears as she saw the moist eyes and quivering lip of her 
interesting little pupil, who was no doubt praising God 
with that perfect praise so dear and precious in His 
sight. 

"What a contrast to this simple, docile, reverent Faith 
is the cynical and blasphemous effrontery of one of the 
leaders of modern thought, who says in the presence of a 
large audience, who have led one another to believe that 
it is the correct thing to laugh and be amused at the 
wit of the lecturer, " If we had been born in India we 
would have believed in a God with three heads. Now 
we believe in three Gods with one head" ! This is one 
of the effects of Free-thought : it has led clever men to 
fling Faith and reverence to the winds, and set them on to 
misuse the talents God gave them to caricature Himself 
and misrepresent His Divine message. 

Suppose some one were to point out to this genius of 
modern progress, " You are misrepresenting Catholic 
Christianity. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach 
that there are three Gods. She teaches, on the con- 
trary, that there is but one God, and that there cannot by 
any possibility be more Gods than one. The very idea 
of God involves a Being infinitely perfect, and supreme 



58 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



Lord and Master of all things, and therefore necessarily 
excludes another being equal to Himself in these Divine 
perfections. He would probably shrug his shoulders, and 
say, with the flippant tone of our fashionable Agnostics, 
" Have it your own way — you may of course be right, but 
the fact is we can know nothing about the ' unknowable.' 
And if there really exists such a Being as you describe, 
one of the clearest arguments against His perfections 
would be His asking reasonable beings to believe what 
they do not understand." 

Let us briefly examine this argument — God has no 
right to require of us to believe incomprehensible 
mysteries. 

My readers may not fear that I am attempting to lead 
them into abstract, learned, metaphysical reasoning on 
the point. What I have to say will be very briefly put, 
and will appeal rather to common-sense than to profound 
learning. I know it would be a great mistake on my 
part to stuff this book, meant for the general public, with 
the dry elements of scholastic teaching. I want the public 
to read what I have written, and to think a little as they 
read on. I can scarcely hope that the majority of readers 
will do more than this. Serious reflection on anything 
that does not fall under the scope of sense would be a 
marvel in the busy world " of facts and figures." Let us 
then ask ourselves the simple question, Has our Creator 
a right to require us to believe the incomprehensible 
information He has given us about the Divine nature ? 
Is it fair to ask us to receive into our finite minds what 
is beyond our powers of mental conception? What is 
the use of this knowledge which we can never apply to 
any practical purposes? Is a religion that proposes 
mysteries to the belief of its adherents a sensible religion, 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 59 



or a religion such as a man of sound, practical, common- 
sense should accept ? 

Instead of one question I have put several ; but they 
all help to bring out the Rationalistic notion — What in 
the name of common-sense have reasonable beings to do 
with what is beyond the reach of reason ? Now in reply 
to all these matter-of-fact questions, I say. It is quite 
clear that, though we may from the visible creation rise 
to the conception of the existence of a supreme neces- 
sarily existing Being, and that this Being must be en- 
dowed with infinite perfections, we can know nothing 
adequately of the nature of this Being except what He 
condescends to tell us about Himself. We may, by the 
study of His works, be brought to bow down and adore 
His infinite power and wisdom and goodness. But, if I 
wish to penetrate farther into the perfections of this 
great Being, I plunge into a fathomless abyss, a mighty, 
boundless ocean, in which the finite mind wanders hope- 
lessly and is lost, If God, taking pity on our mental 
weakness, is pleased to enlighten us by a supernatural 
light, if He condescends to give us a glimpse of His real 
nature, ought we not to accept with gratitude the Divine 
light which is shed upon us, and reverently venerate and 
adore the sacred shadows which this light reflects? 
Christians believe that God has actually given us this 
Revelation of Himself. Catholic Christianity maintains 
that this Revelation, partly written, partly given by word 
of mouth through our Divine Redeemer, has been 
intrusted to the Church's teaching till the end of time ; 
and that the teaching Church is helped and enlightened 
in preserving and explaining this Revelation by the Holy 
Ghost constantly abiding with her. In this way Catholic 
Christians know with certainty what God has taught ; 



60 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 

they know beyond doubt whether a plain, intelligible 
fact or truth is proposed to them, or whether they are 
called on by Divine authority to accept and believe a 
mystery. 

When Rationalists assail the Christian mysteries they 
do not as a rule keep this point clearly before them. 
Their arguments are mainly directed against Bible Chris 
tianity ; and there, it must be confessed, they are emi- 
nently successful. If there is no infallible authority to 
assure us by its living, speaking voice that the truth 
proposed for belief has been certainly revealed by God, 
and that it has been revealed in a sense which admits of 
only one interpretation, and that in this interpretation is 
involved some dogma which our minds cannot grasp, 
there can be no such thing as belief in mysteries. 

The fact that Bible Christianity cannot fairly and 
logically insist on belief in mysteries is clearly shown by 
the constantly growing disposition on the part of the 
adherents of this form of Christianity to do away with 
all mysteries, to abolish the Athanasian Creed, and to 
explain everything of a mysterious character as merely 
figurative and symbolical language. Now, taking our 
stand on this solid rock of Catholic Christianity, we 
Catholics argue thus : 1st. Do any truths incompre- 
hensible to man exist ? 2d. Has God a right to require 
that man should believe truths which he does not com- 
prehend ? We can afterward demonstrate the practical 
value of such truths. 

With regard to the first point, there can be no doubt 
that we all believe in truths which we do not compre- 
hend. As the celebrated Abbe McCarthy puts this point 
in the clearest light, I quote his eloquent words : " On 
whatever side you turn your eyes, whether you fix them 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 61 

upon yourself or upon the objects which, surround you, 
whether you turn them to the heavens above or cast 
them down to the earth upon which you tread, do you 
not everywhere encounter limits to retard you, or depths 
and obscurities to confound you? In the first place, 
you find them within yourself. What is that substance 
which constitutes the principle of volition, of thought, of 
deliberation and action within you, the source of sensa- 
tion, of motion, and life — in a word, your soul ? Nothing 
is more present, nothing more interwoven with your ex- 
istence. It is, as it were, the groundwork of your being ; 
it is your very self. What is this substance ? Endeavor 
to grasp it within your thoughts, to examine it, to analyze 
it — you cannot. There is no fact which you feel so in- 
timately, as that you live. But what is your life ?" 

It is well known that the vital principle in all crea- 
tures, as well as in man, is the very point where the 
most scientific analysis of being is checked. We may 
talk about protoplasm and cells and molecules, and 
build up the creature according to our fancy ; but what is 
that life which sets the minute organization in motion, 
and the loss of which in a moment reduces the most 
elaborate mechanism to decomposition and ruin? We 
know not ; it is all a mystery. No one doubts, while he 
is in active health, that he has absolute power over his 
limbs, but who understands the manner in which this 
power of thought and will is exercised ? Men may, by 
patient study, bring out before them the elaborate struc- 
ture of the organs of sense ; they see how admirably the 
eye is adapted for seeing and the ear for hearing ; but 
who will tell us the shape or color or form of the im- 
material substance that receives the impressions of sight 
or sound, or how the image painted on the retina is con- 



62 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



veyed to the spiritual substance which, from the very 
nature of its operations, must be without parts ; not pre- 
senting in its simple nature one point of contrast with 
the material image that affects it. 

It is needless to pile up the argument with illustrations 
from outside. Take the most ordinary phenomena of 
nature — the growth of a blade of grass, the sprouting of 
a grain of corn. You may with the microscope watch 
these operations in the very first instant of their external 
action. You can see, as any amateur familiar with the 
use of the instrument understands, the action of fertiliza- 
tion in the common duck-weed, or any other species of 
the Lemna that grow in our pools or ditches. 

But what is it that in the first instant of this apparent 
life has quickened the seemingly lifeless sphere into 
activity ? No one can tell. It is a mystery to the most 
experienced savant as to the ignorant rustic. The pro- 
found ignorance of man who, in the exaltation of his 
pride, when he chances to stumble over some new 
isolated fact in the physical world, fancies he knows 
everything, is well expressed in the words of Ecclesiastes : 
" And I understood that man can find no reason of all 
these works of God that are done under the sun : and 
the more he shall labor to seek, so much the less shall he 
find: yea, though the wise man should say that he 
knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it" (Ecclesiastes 
viii. 17). 

There is not a single truth, even in the natural and 
physical order, which is not incomprehensible in some 
respect or other. Even in that science which may be 
said to be the growth of man's own thought, pure 
mathematics, there are mysteries where the keenest 
mind must stop and declare that it has reached a limit 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 63 



which it cannot pass. How ridiculous, is it not, before 
the face of these clouds and shadows, in the midst of 
which we walk in this material world, to complain that 
religion should ask us to believe incomprehensible truths 
regarding the Infinite God and "the depths of His 
knowledge and wisdom " ? 

How many a poor ignorant scoffer at revealed religion 
and its mysteries, who boasts that he is a man of com- 
mon practical sense, who believes nothing but what he 
sees, is altogether ignorant that there is not an hour of 
his waking life in which he is not virtually giving the lie 
to this Free-thinking theory ! If he did not believe, on 
the testimony of others, the ordinary natural phenomena 
with which his life is intimately blended, and of the true 
nature of which he knows as little as a child, he should 
miserably perish. He scarcely knows the first rudiments 
of common physiology — how his body is nourished, and 
what are the constituents of his food, and how his blood 
circulates. If he waited first of all to understand all 
these complicated arrangements, and their causes and 
effects, before he attended to his bodily wants, in case he 
did not die of hunger, he would soon be eminently quali- 
fied for a lunatic asylum. There can be no doubt, then, 
that incomprehensible truths exist. Let us now see if 
God has not a perfect right to ask us to believe truths 
about Himself which we do not comprehend. 

I have already shown that it was to be expected, from 
the very nature of the case, that if God actually con- 
descended to tell us some of the secrets of His being, 
these secrets, quite beyond the reach of our finite grop- 
ings, should necessarily be incomprehensible — that is, 
above the powers of our mind to understand them, but 
not in any way opposed to the natural lights of our reason. 



64 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 

The chief argument of the Rationalists on this point 
is : " God is a God of light. He is Omniscient. Whatever 
emanates from Him should be clear, luminous, and in- 
telligible. In proportion as the intellect of man is clear 
and well developed, so are his teachings on the subject of 
his studies. While the vain pedant mystifies his audi- 
ence with bits and scraps of sensational information, 
illogically put together and out of order, full of contra- 
dictions and extravagances, the really learned man can 
adapt himself to the capacity of children. Should it not 
be so eminently when God speaks to us ? Ought not all 
His teachings to be luminous as the sun itself ?" 

I thought it well to give this argument the full force 
with which it appeals to the judgment of the unthinking 
multitude. But how very silly is its sophistry ! I have 
already shown that nature, science, and every grand 
truth connected with our existence in this world, are full 
of mysteries, surrounded by shadows which our intellect 
cannot penetrate. And from whom do all these emanate ? 
Is it not from the great first and supreme Cause of all that 
exists ? Is it not from this omniscient, luminous God ? 

If men, by careful study and preparation, are able in 
proportion to their learning and industry and care, to 
adapt themselves to the intelligence of their audience, to 
make what is clear to themselves clear to others also ; if 
they can teach others to understand whatever is in- 
telligible, and quite within the scope of the ordinary 
perception of individuals — does it follow that when the 
Omniscient God deigns to draw aside a little the veil that 
hides His Infinite nature from our sight, the super- 
natural light should not dazzle and bewilder us ? Must 
God give us lights equal to His own ? If He lifts the 
veil a little for our good, and to let us know something 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 65 



about Himself that will make us love Him with a more 
reverential love, fear His justice, and adore His sanctity, 
as we are thus attracted to Him by the clearer know- 
ledge of His goodness and patience and infinite mercy, 
is He bound to display all His infinite perfections to 
gratify our pride ? 

Pressed in this way, the objectors will reply : " No, no. 
We must admit that the finite cannot take into itself the 
Infinite ; as well might we hope to hold the vast ocean in 
the hollow of our hand. But God cannot oblige us to 
believe what we cannot understand. This would be to 
require the sacrifice of our reason, and that would be in 
the last degree absurd !" 

It is easy to pierce through the flimsy covering of this 
specious reasoning. But that the age is eminently an 
unreasoning one, the prophets and leaders of modern 
Free-thought would not dare so impudently to abuse 
the public confidence. The men who reason thus will 
require their children to receive their teaching on mat- 
ters that are perfectly incomprehensible to them. They 
will require the ignorant, on the authority of the learned, 
to believe things which seem contrary to the evidence of 
sense — to believe, for instance, that this earth constantly 
revolves with wonderful velocity ; that the sun, which 
seems to their untrained eyes to rise and set, is stationary. 
They will require the blind man to believe all the phe- 
nomena of light. In this they are acting quite conform- 
ably to right reason and common-sense. And they go 
farther still, they will dogmatize on the exaggeration of 
these sound principles, and grow mad with passion if 
their pet theories and systems of evolution or spontaneous 
generation are called into question. 66 Why," they say, 
" should the ignorant herd who have never gone fully 



66 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



into these subjects, dare to doubt our superior knowledge, 
and the accuracy of that process of induction which has 
led us from fact to fact, till we have reached that height 
whence, like gods, we can with a glance take in the vast 
field stretched out before us, create system upon sys- 
tem, and pronounce it all ' to be very good,' and satisfac- 
tory to ourselves and the whole world." 

But I reply, How can they consistently require this 
acceptance of their teaching and entire submission to 
their authority, when they deny that men ought to ex- 
hibit the same deference and the same docility to the 
sovereign and infallible intelligence of God ? 

I will conclude the argument with the eloquent words 
of the illustrious preacher already quoted. He is address- 
ing Rationalists on this very point. " When you refuse 
to admit that in science and enlightenment the Infinite 
Being has a far greater superiority over any mortal, even 
the most enlightened, than the full-grown man possesses 
over the child, or the man who sees over the blind man, 
or the philosopher over the ignorant man, I must con- 
fess that your blindness and your inconsistency seem to 
me the greatest of all mysteries ; and if this be what you 
dignify with the appellation of philosophy and wisdom, 
it is what I term not only inexcusable audacity and 
impiety, but incomprehensible stupidity and folly." 

The only question that can reasonably be urged is this : 
Has God spoken? Do we know, can we know, with 
certainty what He has revealed ? Is there no chance that 
we may be deceived, either concerning the fact of the 
Divine message, or the incomprehensible mystery that 
this message sets before us? If the revelation comes 
from Him it must be true, whatever may be the difficul- 
ties or obscurities which it may present to us. All our 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTEKIES. 67 

arguments to the contrary are as senseless as the argu- 
ment of a blind man against colors, or those of a deaf 
man against sound and speech. 

How absurd then, is the whole of this reasoning of 
Free-thought. Why will it not fix on what is fairly 
within its province and argue upon the question of fact, 
Has God really made a Eevelation ? But this would re- 
quire time and trouble and serious thought ; and so the 
leaders of modern Free-thought, in direct opposition to 
the practical inductive philosophy so much applauded 
by them, talk of the " unknowable," shrug their shoul- 
ders, and say — " This Beligion cannot be true, because 
it teaches things that are beyond our comprehension." 
In all other matters of learned inquiry the mode of pro- 
cedure is quite the opposite of this. 

I quite agree with the system of inductive philosophy, 
now so much in vogue, as regards physical science, and 
also to a certain extent as regards revealed Religion. By 
all means let us have facts before we theorize or specu- 
late. The facts collected by Darwin are unquestionably 
of immense value to the scientific world ; so are the facts 
fairly tested and demonstrated by Huxley. 

Every one knows what in these days would be called 
the " sell" of the merry monarch. "Why," said Charles 
to his learned courtiers, "does a dead fish out of water 
weigh heavier than a living fish in water ?" There was 
any amount of theorizing over the assumed fact, till a 
shrewd philosopher raised the point, Is it positively a 
fact that the dead fish weighs heavier ? He showed by 
actual experiment that there was no such fact on which 
to speculate, and so solved the humorous riddle. 

Now, in the matter of Eevelation, there are certain facts 
to be established ; and, thanks to the labors of learned 



68 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 

Christians of all denominations, the great fact that there 
has been a Revelation is demonstrated beyond possibility of 
doubt. I have in the diocesan library here a valuable work 
in seventeen quarto volumes, collected from the works of 
over one hundred most distinguished writers on the subject. 
It is called Demonstrations ~3vangeMques and includes 
extracts from the learned Fathers of the Church, from the 
celebrated French and English historians, theologians 
and preachers, Protestant as well as Catholic, infidel as 
well as believers. "When I say that the names of Bacon, 
Grotius, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, Locke, Leibnitz, Bayle, 
Tillotson, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Leharpe, Poynter, 
Paley, Buckland, etc., figure amongst them, an idea may 
be formed of the vast accumulation of evidence which 
the learned Abbe Migne, the editor of the work, has 
brought to bear on the sensible and striking facts demon- 
strating the truth of revealed Religion. Prophecies and 
their fulfilment, miracles, the testimony of so many thou- 
sand martyrs, the conversion of the whole civilized 
world, the preservation of the Church, summed up in 
the eloquent passage of Macaulay on " The Everlasting 
Church," offer ample scope for the keen scrutiny of Free- 
thinkers. 

But this accumulation of evidence alarms them, and 
so, departing from the sound principles of inductive rea- 
soning, they rush into the boundless and obscure field of 
doctrine, and involve themselves in stupid arguments, re- 
garding the possibility or probability of matters which 
are altogether beyond the reach of their reasoning powers. 
Facts are disregarded, although they are the only acces- 
sible and palpable part of it, in order that, behind the 
leaden barrier of Agnosticism, they may amuse themselves 
with caricaturing God's truth, and losing themselves in 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 69 

the mazes of silly speculations and unmeaning evasions 
and distortions of the sacred Word of God. 

"When I read that thousands of intelligent people in 
America attend the lectures of Ingersoll, and applaud the 
fun and humor that would have no enlivening point but 
because it is directed to subjects that were once venerable 
and sacred in their eyes, I am confirmed in the prof o and 
conviction which has forced itself on my mind, that the 
blighting curse of tbeage, which threatens all social order 
and real progress, is this flippancy and silly love of variety 
and change and piquancy, that the luxury and the love of 
wealth has made necessary to relieve the monotony of 
material enjoyment. 

I saw a picture, some years ago, in the gallery of the 
Louvre reserved for modern artists. It presented a view 
of the state of society in the luxurious days of the effete 
Roman empire. It is before my mental vision now — not 
gross and revolting to Christian eyes, but telling its tale 
of desolation in the dress and attitudes and expression of 
a set of Bacchanalian revellers tired of enjoyment and 
weary of life. It seemed as if the ordinary gratifications 
of sensuality had become repulsive to them from satiety, 
and that they had neither hope nor spirit even to dream 
of new pleasures. 

We have not yet come to this pass, but any one who 
thinks seriously may mark the unmistakable signs of its 
near approach, in the perverted literature of these evil 
days, in the degradation of the stage, in the decline of 
classic art in music and painting, in the indifference to 
anything thab can raise the soul above the earthly things of 
earth. We may note it too in the dress and fashions of 
the time, concentrated on low and depraved tastes that 
seem to ape the sensualism of our African savagery. 



70 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTEKIES. 



There are unmistakable signs of the utter hollowness 
and want of solid Catholic Christianity in the masses of 
nations that once were thoroughly Christian, in their 
habits and modes of thought. A generation or two 
hence, if the lotus-eaters, who are insensibly and lazily 
drifting down the stream of dreamland, yield themselves 
entirely to this seductive influence, that stupor may come 
on the world which invariably precedes the upheaving of 
anarchical revolution. 

The languid Romans of the declining days of the 
Empire could scarcely rouse themselves to the realization 
of the terrible fact that the tide of savage barbarism was 
at their gates, when they were swept away helplessly in 
the mighty deluge. The voluptuous courtiers of the age 
of Louis XV. mocked and derided the sullen growlings 
of the coming storm, and so miserably perished. 

It may be said that in this nineteenth century we are 
free from those striking inequalities between the favored 
upper classes and the trampled-down poor, which were 
among the chief causes of the great Revolution. But 
there are crying evils of the kind even now. What will 
happen when the hitherto uneducated classes come fully 
to understand the fact that in Great Britain about eight 
thousand of the privileged idle class hold in their hands 
46,500,000 acres of the land of the nation, and that, 
though these lands represent a value of between three 
and five thousand million pounds, or an annual value, 
for the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land, of one hundred and eight millions sterling, the taxes 
borne by the privileged few amount to only four and a 
half millions ? 

It is no wonder that Mr. Kaye, one of the foremost 
political economists of the time, has said — " The classes 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 71 



wlio are deprived of the natural means of improving their 
social condition, will rise more and more fiercely against 
the obstacles that beset them, the more clearly they per- 
ceive these obstacles. If it is necessary or expedient that 
the present landed system should be continued, it would 
be wiser to get rid of every school in the country. To 
give the people intelligence and yet to tie their hands, is 
more dangerous than to give fire to a madman." 

Some years ago Mr. Fawcett wrote : " Production has 
increased quite beyond the most sanguine hopes, and yet 
the day when the workman shall obtain a larger share of 
the increase seems as far distant as ever; and in his 
miserable abode the struggle against want and misery is 
as hard as ever it was. The result of this is to create a 
profound hostility to the fundamental principles upon 
which society is based." Well has a distinguished writer 
portrayed in a few pithy words the economy of social 
life at the present time : " It is a philosophy of despair, 
resting upon an arithmetic of ruin." 

It is very easy for those who ought to preserve them- 
selves from the laissez-aller disposition of this frivolous 
age, to say, as did the French noblesse on the eve of the 
cataclysm, " Apres nous le deluge" But statesmen 
should ponder in time on the signs of the growing whirl- 
wind of conviction that is rising in the public mind, and 
open their eyes to the proximate dangers which Free- 
thought, education without God, and the other liberal 
views, so fashionable now, are rapidly generating. Let 
any unexpected cause relax the firm arm of physical 
force, and who can form an idea of the immensity of the 
desolation that is even now threatening the social 
fabric ! 

I had almost forgotten to point out the use and value 



72 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



of incomprehensible truths of Revelation. The thoughts 
to which I have just given expression suggest them. 

Mysteries in Religion check the evil of pride — the 
source of all the miseries of our fallen race ; they clearly 
indicate to man that there are limits to his curiosity. 
" Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," is the plain 
lesson of every mystery. And, while they check our 
pride, they irresistibly transport our thoughts to another 
life, where all that is mysterious now, will form in its 
ample development and in the unbounded prospect it 
will open to the emancipated soul, the infinite source of 
joys without end, ever varying and ever delightful. 
Were our thoughts of future bliss confined to visions of 
earthly pleasure, we might picture to ourselves the 
satiety of happiness. We know that the sweetest music 
will weary with monotony, and in time, if continued, 
become a real torture ; a bed of roses will soon lose its 
fragrance. Such thoughts help us to realize to ourselves 
the force of that objection of Rationalism conveyed in 
the " damp clouds" and " give him a harp" of Ingersoll. 
But when, in connection with the incomprehensible 
mysteries of Religion, we know that delights are in store 
for us hereafter, of which in the flesh we can have no 
conception, we are helped to feel the force of the con- 
soling words of the Apostle — " Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of men, 
what things God hath prepared for them that love Him" 
(1 Cor. ii. 9). 

If now we view Catholic Christianity in its mysteries, 
how beautiful, how consoling! How far beyond any 
ideal of the human imagination is the view with which 
it gladdens us ! There is no question of dreams or 
fancies, but " the evidence of things that appear not." 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 73 

The soul seems to expand with the vastness of the pros- 
pect presented to it. It sees " dimly" of course, and 
" as it were through a glass," the happy state " prepared 
for it from the beginning of the world." God Himself, 
the centre of all things desirable, who alone can satisfy 
the longings of the heart, will be " its reward exceeding 
great." 

There is something in the very fact that it cannot con- 
ceive the immensity of the Divine perfections, that fills 
it with a foretaste of bliss. If the joys we hope for in 
the better land were clearly defined, though they might 
gleam and glisten with the brightest flashes of human 
eloquence, and appear before us adorned with all the 
flowers and graceful imagery of the poet, we would soon 
learn to strip them of these adventitious charms, and 
viewing them in their naked poverty and emptiness, come 
to despise them as the perishable and unsatisfactory joys 
of earth. "Who would care " to fight the good fight," to 
battle bravely with the world, the demon, and the flesh, 
to take up the cross daily and follow after Christ, if the 
crown prepared for him hereafter were one such as we 
might covet in this world — a gilded toy to amuse the 
eye for a season, but dim, tarnished, and worthless under 
the first breath of eternity. 

Mahommedans, whose souls have never been invigorated 
with the pure atmosphere of a Heaven, " where nothing 
defiled can enter," may sacrifice life and the fleeting joys 
of earthly pleasure for an eternity of sensual repose. 
But the Christian, who has learned to fix his affections on 
the all-holy and perfect treasure prepared for him in the 
kingdom of God, must ever spurn with contempt plea- 
sures and delights that derive their charm from any- 
thing that is of the earth, earthly. 



74 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 

It is only when we associate bliss hereafter with the 
purest intellectual satisfaction we can conceive, that the 
soul seems lifted above the weaknesses of the frail body, 
and impelled to do and dare great things for the posses- 
sion of that unbounded knowledge to be found in God. 
Religion may set this glorious prize before us, but no 
revelation that our souls can bear in this prison of the 
flesh, could possibly afford us more than a faint gleam of 
the exquisite delight with which we shall be inebriated 
when, seeing God " face to face," we shall behold " the 
secret things" of all knowledge in the brightness of His 
glory. 

" No man can see God and live ;" and so, whatever 
God tells us of His own nature and perfections, and the 
future prepared for those who love Him, must be tem- 
pered and toned down to suit our finite perceptions ; 
and we must be not only content but grateful that He 
has only dimly revealed these incomprehensible mys- 
teries. Here we are as children, speaking of things we 
do not understand, lisping as it were the language of 
Heaven, but reminded constantly by these unintelligible 
accents of our true country, towards which during life 
we were always hastening. 

When Rationalists say that our mysteries are not only 
incomprehensible, but actually contradictory to reason, 
absurd, and ridiculous, they go rather too far for the 
common-sense of their hearers. They imitate those 
fanatical Christians who fancy they are demonstrating 
the truth of their religious views by overwhelming the 
old Church with a heap of the vilest names they can put 
together. The greater the heap and the more high- 
sounding the vituperations the better — " idolatrous," 
" blasphemous," " monstrous," " diabolical," " absurd," 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 75 



and "ridiculous." This class of reasoners, whether 
Christian or non-Christian, forget an axiom which, if 
not known in precise terms by the general public, is 
well understood : " Quod nimis probat, nihil probat" — 
" What proves too much, proves nothing." If the mys- 
teries of revealed Religion are absurd and contradictory, 
then all the great and learned men who for the last 
eighteen hundred years have adorned the Christian name 
by their talents, and genius, and profound wisdom, were 
simply besotted idiots. There were millions and millions 
of such men, giants of literature, many of whom are re- 
garded by the learned of to-day as the benefactors and 
most distinguished ornaments of humanity : and they 
were Catholics, who heard the Church, and learned their 
religion from her lips. The conceited and impudent 
Rationalist, who with jaunty air points at these great men 
the finger of scorn, and calls them " blind fools, leaders 
of the blind," is likely to establish his own character for 
senseless vanity in the minds of a discerning public. 

When the definitions of the Church that declare the 
revealed mysteries are read with ordinary attention there 
is no ground whatever for the charge of contradiction. 
If some other form of expression, that has its origin in 
stupid ignorance or ingenious malice, is attributed to the 
Church, and the true doctrine is misrepresented, all the 
specious reasoning of her adversaries is directed, not 
against the dogma, but against a mere misapprehension 
or distortion of the true doctrine. 

If a Rationalist says that the Church requires and 
forces her hearers to believe the palpable absurdity, that 
three Gods are one God, that three persons are one per- 
son, he is only stating what is absolutely false; and, 
though he may indulge in sparkling wit and ridicule in 



76 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 



tearing the monstrous proposition to rags, he is only 
imitating the infuriated bull that tramples and gores and 
tosses the senseless object flung in his face to deceive 
him. 

All the shocking irreverence applied to the Blessed 
Eucharist, " The wafer God," " The priests' God," etc., 
have their origin in the same culpable ignorance or the 
same malicious misrepresentation. 

If earnest men, who pride themselves on their supe- 
riority to blind prejudice, and their honesty of purpose, 
would only take a little pains to know what Catholic 
Christianity really is, if, instead of learning this from the 
bitter enemies of the Church, they went to the fountain 
source, and disregarded altogether these turbid and muddy 
waters, what a glorious spectacle would they behold in 
the mysteries proposed by the Catholic Church! They 
would see then at a glance the wonderful unity and 
admirable connection there is between these revealed 
truths, and that one almost necessarily grew out of the 
other. They would not of course comprehend how three 
persons really distinct can exist in a single nature ; but 
they would be helped, by the study of their own unity of 
person in a twofold nature, to conceive of the Divine 
nature something infinitely superior and more incompre- 
hensible. They would see at once that without this dis- 
tinction of persons the Incarnation would have been 
impossible, and that there could be no Atonement. Be- 
lieving firmly that the Uncreated "Word, " by Whom all 
things were made," became man, that Christ was as truly 
God as He was man, and that in Him there is but one 
Person, and consequently that all His actions are those of 
a God ; that consequently Mary is the Mother of God ; 
that the Blessed Eucharist is the means invented by 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. 77 

Almighty love to bring home to every individual of the 
Christian family, as long as the world lasts, the fruits of 
Eedemption; similarly they would perceive that the 
Sacramental system almost naturally grew from the same 
stem; that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception 
and the Devotion to the Sacred Heart are the gradual 
unfolding of the blossoms of Faith on the Tree of Life. 

This one view of the intimate connection and harmony 
of revealed truths would of itself be sufficient to fill them 
with reverence and admiration for that tree planted by a 
Divine hand, which has stood the storms of ages, and is 
now, in the midst of the wreck and ruin of Impiety and 
Heresy, as vigorous and flourishing as in its palmiest 
days ; offering, in its ample shade, calm and quiet rest to 
the weary and distracted nations of the whole world. 



78 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 



CHAPTEK III. 

The Incarnation, the Centre and Soul of Catholic 
Christianity. 

T HA YE always felt that the practical life of an ear- 
nest Catholic must be of a supernatural character. 
He cannot realize to himself what his religion teaches, 
without feeling that he is moving in the midst of spiri- 
tual influences that mould and fashion and determine 
every impulse of his being. 

Some of the weird traditions of my native country — 
the stories I have heard in earliest years of the " good 
people," " the whispering of the angels" when the infant 
smiles in its happy slumbers, the wail of the benshee, all 
these pretty harmless legends which live in the glowing 
imagination of the Irish peasant, are not after all stupid 
superstitions, but outcomes of revealed truth embalmed 
in the poetry of nature. They tell of the fervent piety 
of a people who in the ages of Faith " walked with God," 
when " the Emerald Isle" was the only safe home of Re- 
ligion, and an " Island of Saints." It is probably this 
natural tendency of the imagination to rise above the 
stern realities of material life, to see and feel the kind 
Providence of our Heavenly Father directing the crosses 
and afflictions of cruel suffering, in bad seasons, and per- 
secution more cruel still, and the miseries of poverty, 
hardly known in other lands, that renders many a poor 
uneducated Irish mother, who knows no learning but her 
beads and the rudiments of her catechism, a perfect 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



79 



heroine in that most exalted of virtues, the nighest to 
angelic perfection — entire submission to the blessed will 
of God. 

It is the same inherent instinct of a lively Faith, that 
enables them to ward off the assaults of polemical in- 
trusion, and to overcome with ready wit the arguments 
of Biblical learning. My memory teems with amusing 
instances of pharisaical pride brought low, and sancti- 
monious cant balked and baffled by happy retorts and 
flashes of pleasantry that overwhelmed the assailant with 
" the inextinguishable laughter" of an appreciative audi- 
ence. Humorous as they are, they spring from the 
earnestness of religious conviction, and from the almost 
perfect realization of some revealed truth, long the sub- 
ject of serious meditation. 

I am almost tempted to set one or two anecdotes of 
the kind before my readers, but I feel " nunc non erat 
his locus" 

One thing is quite certain, though even learned Pro- 
testant Divines affect to mourn over the superstitions 
and blank ignorance of the poor in Ireland, they might 
learn wisdom from the ingrained and intense piety de- 
veloped in the school of adversity. Devotion most 
tender and affectionate to the Mother of the Saviour is 
strikingly characteristic of this piety. The gentle 
Virgin, " with the boy-God upon her knee," or Mary 
standing at the foot of the cross, is constantly before the 
eyes of the poor beadsman, or the fixed internal gaze of 
the mother and her children, as they repeat the " Our 
Father" or the Angelical salutation. They hope, in the 
deep sense of their own unworthiness, that they may 
pray with unbounded confidence when their humble 
petitions are offered in the presence and with the ap- 



80 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

proval and recommendation of the Holy Mother of 
God. 

It is a remarkable thing that in this land of the old 
Faith the Catholics of high and low degree never salute 
Mary, as they do in England and other lands, with the 
title of " Our Blessed Lady," but speak of Her and to 
Her, invariably, as the " Mother of God." It may be 
that our good Father in Heaven, in consideration of the 
many trials that in Ireland beset the Faith of the people, 
filled their souls with the comforting and sustaining 
belief that lies under this tender appellation, which com- 
prises in itself all the riches of His infinite condescension 
and mercy. 

The point suggested by these thoughts is so admirably 
put by Cardinal Newman, and falls in so entirely with 
the object of this chapter, which means to show that the 
great mystery of the Incarnation is the chief ground of 
Catholic Christianity, that I give it almost in extenso 
from that admirable sermon, " The Glories of Mary for 
the Sake of her Son :" " When the Eternal Word decreed 
to come on earth, He did not purpose, He did not work, 
by halves ; but He came to be a man like any of us, to 
take a human soul and body, and to make them His 
own. He did not come in a mere apparent or accidental 
form, as Angels appear to men ; nor did He merely over- 
shadow an existing man, as He overshadowed His Saints, 
and call Him by the name of God ; but He ' was made 
flesh.' He attached to Himself a manhood, and became 
as really and truly man as He was God, so that henceforth 
He was both God and man, or, in other words, He was 
one Person in two natures, Divine and human. This is 
a mystery so marvellous, so difficult, that Faith alone 
firmly receives it ; the natural man may receive it for 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



81 



a while, may think lie receives it, but nevei really receives 
it ; begins, as soon as be bas professed it, secretly to rebel 
against it, evades it, or revolts from it. This he has done 
from the first ; even in the lifetime of the beloved disciple 
men arose, who said that our Lord had no body at all, or a 
body framed in the heavens, or that He did not suffer, but 
another suffered in His stead, or that He was but for a time 
in the human form which was born and which suffered, 
coming on it at its baptism, and leaving it before its cruci- 
fixion, or that He was a mere man. That 6 In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God,' and £ the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us,' was too hard a thing for the unregenerate reason. 

" The case is the same at this day ; mere Protestants 
have seldom any real perception of the doctrine of God 
and man in one Person. They speak in a dreamy, 
shadowy way of Christ's divinity ; but, when their mean- 
ing is sifted, you will find them very slow to express the 
Catholic dogma. . . . Now, if you would witness against 
these unchristian opinions, if you would bring out dis- 
tinctly and beyond mistake and evasion, the simple idea of 
the Catholic Church that God is man, could you do it better 
than by laying down in St. John's words that 6 God became 
man' ? and again could you express this more emphati- 
cally and unequivocally than by declaring that He was 
born a man or that He had a Mother? The world allows 
that God is man ; the admission costs it little, for God is 
everywhere, and (as it may say) is everything ; but it 
shrinks from confessing that God is the Son of Mary. 
It shrinks, for it is at once confronted with a severe fact, 
which violates and shatters its own unbelieving view of 
things; the revealed doctrine forthwith takes its true 
shape, and recei ves an historical reality ; and the Almighty 



82 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 



is introduced into His own world at a certain time and in 
a definite way. Dreams are broken and shadows depart ; 
tlie Divine truth is no longer a poetical expression, or a 
devotional exaggeration, or a mystical economy, or a 
mythical representation. . . . By witnessing to the process 
of the union, it secures the reality of the two subjects of 
the union, of the divinity and of the manhood. If Mary 
is the Mother of God, Christ is understood to be the 
Emmanuel, God with us." 

This passage, which I have somewhat abridged, seems 
to me to bring out with peculiar force and power the 
fundamental mystery of revealed Beligion. Once this 
mystery is believed in all its fulness, there can be no 
difficulty in believing in all its consequences. The Child 
adored in the crib at Bethelehem is the God by whom 
all things were made. Those little hands stretched out 
towards the Virgin Mother in infantine helplessness, are 
the hands of God ; these eyes dimmed with the tears of 
dawning human life are the eyes of God ; that voice, as 
yet inarticulate and murmuring of unintelligible babyish 
sorrow, is the voice which once awoke creation into being. 
What is there that the great God has not given us in 
this mystery? What gift can be imagined larger or 
more bountiful on His part to fallen man % "When we 
believe, with all the assent of our minds, the joyful 
tidings that He has thus given us His Son to be our real 
brother, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, His 
loving condescension is complete. 

It would be almost impossible, in the limits of one chap- 
ter, to set forth the extravagant notions entertained by 
Christians outside the Church, concerning this great myste- 
ry. They all more or less converge to one point — " to dis- 
solve Jesus Christ," as St. John expresses it — " and every 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



83 



spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God." They would 
by some figment or other try to break the Hypostatic or 
Personal union of the Divine and human nature in our 
Divine Redeemer. They picture to themselves a double 
personality in Jesus Christ, a man-Christ and a God- 
Christ — a being partly man and partly God. This is the 
most distinctive character of the heresies of the present 
time in reference to the Incarnation. Christians who 
are not Catholics do not care to speak about this mys- 
tery. They affect so great a reverence for it, that, in their 
idea, the union of God and man in the Redeemer is to be 
respected as was the word " Jehovah" by the Jews. If 
they are pressed to explain what they believe exactly, it 
will be found that, if they commit themselves at all to 
any distinct formulary of belief, this belief will incline 
first of all to that form of Appolinarism which supposed 
that in Christ the Divinity took the place of a soul ; 
and when it is pointed out to them that this belief 
would necessarily involve the suffering of the Deity in 
the Divine nature, they either fall back on Arianism 
pure and simple, by denying that Christ is God, or, 
which is more likely, as being less directly in opposition to 
the traditions of Catholic Faith, they will stand as firmly 
as they can on the ground that there was a man-Christ 
and a God-Christ, and that, somehow or other, the two 
individuals were blended into one. It was, they assert, 
the man-Christ that was born of Mary ; it was the man- 
Christ that suffered and died and came to life again. 

That this is no imaginary or fanciful notion of Bible 
Christians' belief in Christ will be made clear if the 
argument is pressed : for then they who hold this Hew 
will become violently dogmatic, and exclaim, " How could 
God suffer?" " How could God die?" " How by any 



84 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

possibility could the Creator become tlie child of His 
own creature ?" Here we see clearly, as Cardinal New- 
man says, the Divine maternity of Mary becomes the 
real test of orthodoxy. God really suffered in His 
human nature. God really died in the same nature. 
God was buried in the tomb, and God was truly the Son 
of Mary. For says the Athanasian Creed, not yet I be- 
lieve abrogated from the formularies of belief of all 
Bible Christians, " The right faith is that we believe and 
confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is 
both God and man, perfect God and perfect man : yet 
not two but one Christ — one altogether, not by the con- 
fusion of substance, but by the unity of person." 

Protestants seldom realize to themselves what is in- 
volved in " obedience to the faith" — that to believe what 
God reveals often requires self-sacrifice and bowing 
down in all simplicity and humility to the truth of His 
holy Word. They do not like to subject themselves to 
this ordeal, and therefore they would much prefer to re- 
ceive the mysteries of revealed Religion without ques- 
tioning too particularly what is the dogma to which we 
must assent under pain of eternal ruin, for " without 
Faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. xi. 6). 

The very opposite is the habit and disposition of 
Catholics : they require to know exactly, without doubt 
or evasion, what mysteries God proposes to them by the 
voice of His Church. They love to meditate upon these 
words of life, to analyze them, and to see their intimate 
connection with other revealed truths, and to draw from 
them sound practical principles for their guidance. If 
Faith, or entire assent of the mind without doubt, to 
everything God has revealed, be essential to salvation, it 
cannot be right and safe to follow our own fancies about 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



85 



these tremendous truths. We are bound to know, as far 
as we can, what they mean, and to be most careful not to 
put some notion of our own in place of what the God of 
all truth has revealed. 

Thus as regards this primary mystery of the Incarna- 
tion, men who desire to please God should say — Must I 
believe that God really suffered and died in His human 
nature, and that Jesus Christ, God the Son from ail 
eternity, was truly the Son of Mary ? No matter what 
the consequences of this profession of Faith may be on 
other articles of his creed, he must not heed these conse- 
quences. " If we have Faith," says Cardinal Newman, 
" to admit the Incarnation itself, we must admit it in its 
fulness ; why then should we start at the gracious ap- 
pointments w T hich arise out of it, or are necessary to it, 
or are included in it ?" 

I think the consequences are so obvious, in one respect 
at least, of professing true Catholic Faith in the Incarna- 
tion, that they cannot escape the perception of any reader 
who glances even hurriedly over these pages. He will 
see that if God our Redeemer is truly the Son of Mary, 
or in other words that if " Mary is really the Mother of 
God," the whole aspect of Protestant thought and teach- 
ing as regards the Yirgin Mary is completely wrong. 

But there can be no doubt upon this point. If our 
Divine Redeemer were not perfect man to suffer and 
perfect God to save, if the two natures were not united 
in the one Person, united so intimately in this firm bond 
of personality that they can never for all eternity be 
severed, there would be no such thing as the Atonement, 
and every fragment of Christian truth would be dissolved, 
" as a cloud is consumed and passeth away" (Job vii. 9). 
See how clear and distinct is the teaching of the Catholic 



86 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

Church on this point ! When God the Son became man 
He did not take the germ of a body and unite it to His 
divinity, but He took a perfect human nature — a body 
and a soul. At the very moment the soul was united to 
the germ of a human body, in the chaste womb of the 
Virgin, before that soul and body had a personality of 
its own, He took it to Himself and made that perfect 
human nature His own forever. There was no person- 
ality to be displaced. There could be no such thing as a 
mere man-Christ, there was no individual existence even 
for a moment, but the individual second person of the 
Blessed Trinity. 

From this it follows that the Catholic sees at once the 
high position to which the Yirgin is exalted in the econ- 
omy of salvation. She is not only " full of grace" and 
every perfection that finite human nature is capable of 
receiving, but she is the connecting link between the 
great God and His sinful creatures. It is the flesh and 
blood received from her that enabled the second Divine 
Person to offer up the sacrifice of expiation. Through 
her is communicated to us the Divine life. She is the 
mother of all the living; and through this common 
maternity we are made children of God and heirs to the 
kingdom of heaven. If God truly became her son, then 
we see at once that she never could have borne the least 
taint of sin. The Immaculate Conception is no longer 
" a shadowy mysticism" or " a new article added to an 
overgrown creed," but the natural expansion and growth 
and development of a truth that existed in the body of 
revealed doctrine from the beginning. 

Let this mystery be thus clearly understood, and then 
every other truth of Christianity springs as it were spon- 
taneously from the living stem. One of the greatest 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



87 



mistakes made by the enemies of the Catholic Church, 
whether they are Christians or Infidels, is that the Church 
is the guardian of a fossilized creed that stands in the 
way of healthy progress. She is, on the contrary, the 
faithful guardian of the light of Faith, that lives and 
burns within her bosom, kindling the ardor of piety in 
the hearts of her children by exhibiting to them the 
glowing pile of the traditions of past triumphs and the 
accumulated heap of innumerable records of immortal 
hope, in her many contests with the powers of this world. 
The Church is a living organization ; and the breath of 
her life is the Spirit of Truth abiding with her forever. 
She lives now with the life breathed into her at Pentecost, 
and this life manifests its vigor in proportion to the 
violence of the assaults to which she is subjected. When 
lately she defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion, the savants of this unthinking age beheld in her 
action only the affectation and trifling of senile vanity. 
But to those who have received her Founder with all the 
fulness of His revelation, and to whom He has, in conse- 
quence of this generous Faith, given power " to be made 
the sons of God," there is evidence, in this most remark- 
able act, of her supernatural vitality and unfailing vigor. 

The main effort of this age of unbelieving progress is 
to trample out the supernatural character of Jesus Christ. 
Jesus is indeed in its eyes the most distinguished of 
human sages, an admirable philosopher, the best of moral 
teachers. It will admit, with the unbelieving Pharisees 
and Sadducees, that " no man ever spoke like Him," but it 
ridicules the idea that He was " the Word made flesh." 
This is the brilliant discovery which science has made in 
the field of theology, so long neglected by it, and it 
rejoices exceedingly. With one bold stroke it has^ it 



88 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

fancies, laid bare the vain subtleties and scholastic absurdi- 
ties of past ages, and its Renans and Strausses and the herd 
of Positivists and Agnostics clap their hands because they 
have shown the world how to get rid of the mystery 
" that tormented them." But in the midst of their un- 
holy triumph, lo ! the old Church, which they would make 
believe was dead of inanition, speaks out with a voice 
that makes itself heard and felt throughout the whole 
world, and proclaims the Immaculate Conception. She 
brings forth Mary — " the high and strong defence of the 
Holy One of Israel," and by whom " all the heresies of 
the past have been destroyed." She points to the ever- 
faithful guardian of the mystery of the Incarnation, and 
because she believes her to be " the Mother of God," as 
firmly as did the Fathers in the Council at Ephesus, she 
crowns the Holy Yirgin with the bright diadem of spot- 
less and immaculate perfection. 

This is precisely the answer one trained in the ways 
of Catholic Christianity would expect to be given by the 
venerable Church of ages to the blatant ravings of 
modern impiety — not a direct answer, for the frivolous 
and thoughtless crowd are unworthy of this attention, 
but a sign set up on high that cannot be gainsaid or mis- 
taken, a light to them that sit in darkness, and a beacon 
to guide men of good-wdll safely through the chaos and 
desolation of modern society, its upheavals and its ruins, 
wrought by the secret and persevering action of the 
elements of unbelief. 

Once the Incarnation is accepted in all its plenitude, 
there is no reasonable ground for unbelief in any of the 
mysteries. Take the Blessed Eucharist, for instance, in 
which we Catholics firmly believe that the Body and 
Blood of Christ are verily and indeed received, and are 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



89 



therefore present, in some wonderful way that we do not 
understand, under the outward appearances of bread and 
wine. 

There are, no doubt, difficulties in the way of entire 
belief. " It is a hard saying" still to the unregenerate, 
who have either never received the grace of Faith, or, 
having received it in Baptism, have come wilfully to 
reject it. Just as the unbelieving multitude forgot the 
Almighty Power which fed them in the wilderness with 
a few loaves and fishes ; as they forgot how He ruled the 
storm, and was omnipotent over all the forces of nature, 
and said to one another, " How can this man give us His 
flesh to eat ?" as they obstinately shut their eyes to the 
proofs of His Divinity, and closed their ears to any teach- 
ing, even from Heaven, that seemed to conflict with their 
own notions of things — so do unbelievers now cry out 
that, no matter what God may say, however clearly and 
emphatically He may express Himself, either by His 
own words or the teaching of His Church, they will 
not believe the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. 
" How," they argue, " can I contradict the testimony of 
my senses ?" " I see bread and wine, I taste bread and 
wine, I touch bread and wine, I smell these elements : 
how can I then, as a rational creature believe that flesh 
and blood are present before me ?" 

Here again there is the usual misrepresentation of the 
doctrine of Catholic Christianity. You are not asked to 
reject the testimony of the senses. The senses testify 
only to the outward appearances of things, and in the 
Blessed Eucharist the outward appearances of bread and 
wine remain unaltered. You only correct the ordinary 
judgment that is founded on the evidence of sense, and 
do not pronounce that the invisible substance is there, be- 



90 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 



cause in this particular instance yon are warned by the 
voice of God to suspend your judgment. If God had 
not spoken and told you that the invisible substance, 
whose existence is known not by sense but by an act of 
the mind, is His Body and Blood, you would be quite 
right in judging that bread and wine only are really pre- 
sent. The presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord 
is perceived only by Faith ; and Faith, as the Apostle tells 
us, " comes from hearing the Word of God." 

"But," continues the objector, "it is monstrous to 
believe that a material substance can by any power be 
changed into the spiritual substance of God, that a crea- 
ture can create the creator." 

Here again is the same sort of misrepresentation. The 
Catholic Church has never taught that a material substance 
is changed into God. It has taught from the very 
beginning to the present day that God cannot deceive 
us, and that when our Divine Lord says a certain thing 
which He presents to us is His Body, we are bound to 
believe Him. When Christ offered what seemed to the 
Apostles to be Bread, He said, as plainly as words could 
express the truth, " This is my Body." He did not say 
This Bread is my Body, but clearly and distinctly, as the 
Evangelists give his words — "This," that I offer you. 
Had He said This Bread — He would have announced a 
proposition which could no more be true than the absurd 
doctrine, put in the mouth of the Church by unbelievers, 
" One God is three Gods." 

No doubt the Apostles believed the words of their 
Divine Master. They saw at once that in this wonder- 
ful way the promise which had once so startled them 
and drew so strongly on their faith was fulfilled. We 
can easily picture to ourselves the joy and consolation 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



91 



which filled their simple and trusting hearts at the last 
supper, when they were made one with Jesus in the Holy 
Communion. What Christ did then, He gave power to 
His Apostles to do in like manner, and commanded them 
to do it. 

And what, after this brief explanation of the Catholic 
doctrine, becomes of the objection changing Bread into 
God, and the creature creating his creator ? By the power 
of God, and by the order of God man speaks, and the 
substance of Bread is changed into the Body of the Lord. 
"But," our objector will say, "this doctrine is incon- 
ceivable. How could Christ hold in His own hands His 
Body ? " It is inconceivable to our ways of thought, but 
it is in some way possible to the great God — and we know 
that Christ was God. 

But how can we possibly believe that the Body of the 
Lord is present in ten thousand places at the same time — 
that it is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, and 
yet really present in innumerable places upon earth ? We 
must believe Him who has the words of eternal life, for 
we believe and confess that " He is Christ, the Son of 
God." " But is it not contrary to common-sense to 
believe that the same body can be present in different 
places at the same time?" Yes, it is impossible to con- 
ceive this of a mortal body, subject, as our bodies are, to 
the laws of space and the other laws of material substances. 
But who shall tell us, in a way that is intelligible to our 
senses, what is " a spiritual body "? (1 Cor. xv. 44.) Who 
will explain how the few loaves and fishes were, by the 
blessing of our Lord, in many mouths at the same time ? 
How was it brought about that the fragments of the feast 
exceeded the original loaves and fishes, since it is clear, 
from the words of the sacred text, that there was no addi- 



92 THE INCARNATION", THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

tion as we should understand it — " twelve baskets were 
filled with the fragments of the five barley loaves" (John 
vi 13). There is as much of an apparent contradiction 
here, as we, according to onr way of conceiving things, 
see in the body of the Lord held in the hands of the 
Lord. How did the body of Christ walk upon the 
waters? How did it penetrate the closed doors of the 
room where the disciples were assembled, and yet be pal- 
pable, visible, and subject to the ordinary laws of matter ? 
How did that body, mangled and torn with many wounds, 
that lay dead in the sepulchre, pierce the solid rock at 
the moment of the Resurrection ? 

There are many things not imagined in human phi- 
losophy which have to be cleared up and fully explained 
before we can apply the laws of our limited experience 
to fetter the powers of the Omnipotent God. " You be- 
lieve in the Incarnation," we say to the caviller : " do you 
receive this mystery as it is defined by Catholic Christi- 
anity ? Do you bow down your reason, and put aside 
all the objections which your proud thoughts might excite 
within you at this marvel of omniscient and omnipotent 
love ? Then cease to ask, ' How can this man give us 
His flesh to eat ? ' " Having given up His life to save us, 
though as God and in His Divine nature He was incap- 
able of suffering and of death ; having reduced Himself 
to the condition of a helpless babe ; nay more, having 
stooped, God as He was, to be less than man — " a worm, 
and no man " — what limits shall we set, according to our 
poor views, to the excess of Divine love shown so prodi- 
gally in the whole economy of Redemption ? 

Suppose a learned Jew were to enter the stable of 
Bethlehem, and to hear from the lips of a Catholic, that 
the weeping infant was the God who made all things, on 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



what conceivable principle of philosophy such as we can 
understand, could this Jew receive the glad tidings ? He 
would be bound by every principle of sound reason and 
common-sense, unenlightened by revelation, to laugh 
contemptuously at the senseless idea. But men who set 
no bounds to their joy and gratitude for the manifestation 
of love shown in the birth of Christ, turn short in their 
acceptance of the traditions of the Faith, and presume to 
blaspheme that other mystery which, to a well-ordered 
Christian mind, is the natural outcome and complement 
of the Incarnation. 

There is only one drawback which I see to the consol- 
ing Faith of the Catholic Christian, and that is the con- 
sciousness of our want of appreciation of this great 
mystery. We do not value, as we ought, the Infinite 
condescension displayed in the adorable Sacrament of 
the Blessed Eucharist. 

What shall tepid and indifferent Catholics say at the 
awful judgment, when those, who knew nothing, or had 
but a most imperfect idea of this priceless treasure, will 
charge them, as well they may, with a want of rev- 
erence and love for the Blessed Eucharist ? " Had we 
known," they will say, " what was meant by the abiding 
presence of the man-God, had we observed in the piety 
and fervor of Catholics the outward signs of a real and 
lively faith, and thus been attracted to inquire into its 
mysterious meaning, how easy it would have been to have 
loved God above all things, to have borne the heat and 
burden of the day, to have struggled bravely on through 
the many tribulations of life, and, fortified by the Bread 
of Life, to have reached the kingdom of Heaven ! " 

Thoughts like these naturally crowd upon us as we 
realize, as far as our poor finite minds can realize, in this 



94 THE INCARNATION, THE CENTRE AND SOUL 

great Sacrament, the breadth and depth of the love 
of the Sacred Heart. But we are weak in all things, 
most weak in Faith. "We seem not to feel the great- 
ness of the gift; as we disregard the terrors of His 
justice, so we seem to forget the patience and long-suffer- 
ing of His Infinite mercy. And thus outsiders to the 
plenitude of Catholic Faith, who make no allowance for 
our manifold imperfections and our narrow conceptions 
of the Infinite, behold in oar tepidity and indifference 
towards the Blessed Eucharist, an unmistakable proof of 
the hollowness of our professions. ~No wonder that In- 
fidels, noticing the bad lives of many Catholics, who 
neither practise the duties of their religion, nor are re- 
strained by its threats of the Divine vengeance, conclude 
that we have no real belief in the mysteries which 
should challenge all our gratitude, or excite our liveliest 
apprehensions. 

A clever writer has thus recently combated the Chris- 
tian Faith in the eternity of torments. If we believed 
it, he says, we could not rest ; the horrible thought that 
some one dear to us might be enduring in hell the incon- 
ceivable miseries of the " worm that dieth not and the 
inextinguishable fire," would rob us of anything like 
happiness. There could not, he argues, be any possible 
pleasure for the true believer, who really set before his 
mind the bare possibility of ever coming to "that place 
of torment." And as it is a fact that men who profess 
to believe in the eternity of woe are happy, and " marry 
and think of marrying," and spend their lives in the en- 
joyment of good things, there is, he triumphantly con- 
cludes, proof positive that Faith is only a sham, and that 
we feed our belief on mere fancies and words without 
meaning. 



OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



95 



How little do such reasoners reflect on the selfishness 
of humanity, and how natural it is for the best of us to 
live almost entirely in the present, and forget the hopes 
and terrors of eternity! There is One alone who per- 
fectly gauges the depths of human feeling, and who 
fully understands the many weaknesses and imperfections 
of our nature, for He is not only omniscient, but has 
made actual trial of our infirmities ; "tempted in all things 
— save sin — even as we are tempted." He has made us 
free, and He knows that the primeval fall has in a manner 
" bewitched 55 our liberty. He will not deprive us how- 
ever of the plenitude of that gift, which, notwithstanding 
all its wild excesses, is the glory of humanity. He con- 
stantly bestows upon us the supernatural gifts of grace, 
that sweetly incline this wayward will of ours to good — 
but He will not force its compliance with these gentle- 
impulses that warn us to provide f or " the one thing nec- 
essary." He has wisely provided for our want of co-op- 
eration with these precious gifts of Infinite mercy. 

Later on we shall see how this kind Providence is man- 
ifested in the organization and direction of His Church. 
In the next chapter, we shall consider how He has pro- 
vided for our wants and miseries, for our coldness and 
indifference, for our thoughtlessness and frivolity, for 
our weakness and infidelities, in the sacramental system 
of Catholic Christianity. 



96 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Catholic Christianity Developed in the Sacra- 
mental Principle. 

~V/T ONSEIGKEUK DEVEREUX, the first Bishop 
JXL and Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern Districts of 
the Cape Colony, often described to me the want ex- 
perienced by souls, who, though not Catholics, were dis- 
tinguished by a pious disposition to have something 
sensible as the object of their adoration. In his large 
experience, he had met with many Protestants of both 
sexes, people of education and position, who expressed 
to him this feeling of a void and emptiness in their de- 
votions, and of a craving after something real and clearly 
defined to their minds, before which they could pray 
with earnestness and attention. They could not, they 
said, form to themselves any notion of the great God ; 
and they felt, as it were, lost in dreamy speculations 
about the nature of the Infinite, when they wanted most 
of all to solicit His blessings and invoke His help and 
protection. They dreaded, they said, anything like an 
anthropomorphic or human conception of the Deity ; it 
would seem so like Idolatry ; and from their vague and 
misty ideas of the Incarnation, they shrank from appeal- 
ing directly to the Saviour as their God. 

No doubt the same sentiment led to the material 
visions of Paganism, and to the peopling the amoena 
loca of this world with imaginary deities. It may ac- 
count also for the worship of what is called Nature, 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 



97 



which is the result of Rationalism, and finds so many 
votaries amongst the aesthetic writers and thinkers of the 
present day. 

To the Catholic properly instructed, and understanding 
the spirit of his religion, such thoughts and fancies are 
impossible. He clearly understands that God our Saviour 
has fully experienced in our nature all its weaknesses, 
and all its longings for direct communication with the 
Author of its being. In the prayers of the daily Mass, 
he is reminded of the stooping dow r n of the Great Being 
who has made all things, that we might be enabled to 
rise through Him to the full appreciation of the tie that 
binds us to " Our Father" in heaven. Thus in the 
Offertory, we have this beautiful prayer used by the 
priest, when he pours a few drops of water into the wine 
in the chalice : " O God, who didst wonderfully create 
the dignity of human nature, and more wonderfully still 
renew it, grant us by this mystery of this wine and 
water, to become sharers of His Divinity who deigned 
to become a portion of our humanity." And again in 
the Preface of Christmas Day : " That while we recognize 
God in a visible form, we may by Him be caught up 
into the love of the invisible." 

He is taught also, in the popular devotion of the 
Rosary, to meditate on every striking fact of the life 
and humiliations and sufferings and death of " the Word 
made flesh." In the Holy Eucharist, with the instinct 
of a lively faith, he almost feels the touch of the God-man 
abiding within him. In the Benediction of the Blessed 
Sacrament, the most ordinary evening devotion in Catho- 
lic churches, he receives the blessing of the Emmanuel. 
In the processions on solemn occasions he is taught to 
realize the fact that the Saviour is ever abiding with us, 



98 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



" passing along amongst us," as He did once visibly on 
earth, " doing good." In the Sacrament of Penance, lie 
recognizes in the voice of the priest, the voice of Him 
who said to Magdalen, " Go in peace, thy sins are for- 
given." When the soul is fluttering on the brink of 
eternity, and the vanity of all earthly things is revealed 
in the glimmering of the dawn of eternity, and he 
shrinks back affrighted at the threshold of the dread 
passage which he must face alone, and sees in spirit the 
powers of darkness banding together to hinder him on 
his way, it is not, he knows well, the words of an earthly 
comforter that whisper courage, it is the voice and the 
hand of God Himself, who, by the ministry of His 
priests anoints his body for the last struggle, and reminds 
him that he must not fear, for Christ has conquered 
death, and in His person has enabled us all to share His 
triumph. Through the great sacrament of the Incar- 
nation, he realizes to the full, the efficacy of the other 
sacraments which are its complement ; and so, while yet 
on this earth of shadows and darkness, he sees the object 
of his Faith, it may be dimly, but yet clearly enough to 
put to flight the earthly thoughts that might rise be- 
tween him and the object of his devotion. 

There is not in the whole world a Catholic, however 
lowly his position among men, who has not learned at 
his mother's knee to feel these august privileges, and to 
place himself in close communion with the supernatural. 
If he be a man of " good- will," he can walk and converse 
with God here below and, through the instincts of Di- 
vine Faith, share in the privilege our first parents enjoyed 
while they were yet innocent, and hear the very voice of 
God speaking to his heart. 

This is the wonderful blessing which Catholic Chris- 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 



99 



tianity offers in the sacramental system to all her children. 
It is worth while to dwell upon it for a few moments, 
and endeavor to catch another glimpse of the loveliness 
of this pure Faith, so little known and understood out- 
side the Church. 

I have already said that Protestants are afraid to ana- 
lyze the mysteries of revealed truth. They consider it 
irreverent to inquire deeply into their meaning, and they 
regard it as an unmistakable sign of fitting respect for 
the Lord and Master of all things to cultivate this feel- 
ing. No doubt in a certain sense they are right. 

There is such a thing as sinful curiosity and an irrev- 
erent attempt to pry into the unfathomable secrets of 
Infinite Being. If a man in the pride of his intellect 
will give way to the dangerous temptation that it is in his 
power to sound these depths, and by the aid of science 
accurately discriminate how much for example of the 
Divine nature could be assimilated in the human soul, or 
to determine how far the human brain could bear the 
tension of omniscience, or the human heart the vast and 
boundless love which is in God, or to calculate by alge- 
braical formulas the relations of the three Divine persons 
to each other, this subtle speculation would deservedly 
bring its own punishment. " He that is a searcher of 
majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory" (Prov. xxv. 27). 
We are warned in the Sacred Scriptures against this high- 
mindedness. " Seek not the things that are too high for 
thee, and search not into things above thy ability" (Ec- 
clesiasticus iii. 22), " Be not high-minded, but fear " 
(Bom. xi. 20). 

But when I say that Protestants fear to study the in- 
comprehensible truths of Bevelation, I do not allude to 
lofty speculations such as these. They fear to set before 



100 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 

them, as far as reason can conceive them, the wonderful 
ways of God in His dealings with us, and shrink from 
meditating on the depths to which He has humbled Him- 
self to make us happy. They go farther than this in 
their misplaced reverence, and like the Jansenists, form to 
themselves notions of what is becoming to the Deity in 
His relations with His creatures, and lay down precise 
and rigid laws of respect; and decorum, which, no matter 
how they may be contradicted by Kevelation, are never 
to be transgressed. 

This is altogether opposed to the first principles of 
Catholic Christianity. Far from encouraging the exag- 
gerated feelings of awe which would only fill us with 
terror of approaching God and sever our affections from 
Him, the Catholic Church endeavors, throughout her 
whole liturgy and by her explanation of the sacramental 
system, to teach us to cultivate hopefully the closest 
relations with God, that can be derived from anything 
that He has been graciously pleased to tell us of His In- 
finite Condescension. Hence these devotions to every 
shred of the history of the Passion of our Saviour, the 
sacred wounds in the hands and feet and side, the Pre- 
cious Blood, the crown of thorns, the latice and nails, the 
Sacred Heart. All these in endless variety rise before the 
mental vision of the devout Catholic in his daily prayers, 
and touchingly invite him to approach in spirit and ven- 
erate and adore the Sacred Humanity of our Divine 
Lord. 

But here it will be asked by those who are not Catho- 
lics, " Can we really adore the Body of our Divine Lord ? 
Can we, fixing the eyes of the soul on the Sacred Hands 
and Feet, embrace them in spirit, as though they formed 
part of the Divinity ? Can we, contemplating the beatings 



m THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 101 



of the Sacred Heart, as it throbbed with convulsive agony 
in the Garden of Gethsemani, or was broken on the cross, 
bow down and worship this material object as the seat of 
Divine love ? 

I answer at once, undoubtedly we can ; and more, we 
ought to adore and worship the Sacred Humanity of our 
Divine Redeemer in whatever way it appeals to our de- 
votion. And the reason is because the main object of 
this devotion is the Divine Person, and because this 
Divine Personality cannot be considered as something 
separate and apart from the Sacred Humanity. 

It is of the utmost importance to make this point clear ; 
for Protestants constantly accuse the Catholic Church of 
a coarse and material worship, and pointing to the expla- 
nation given in our prayer-books of the Devotion to the 
Sacred Heart or Precious Blood, exclaim, " This worship 
of the Roman Catholic Church is evidently a carnal wor- 
ship ; and Roman Catholics cannot possibly, with such 
materialistic conceptions, worship 'in spirit and in 
truth.' " 

Those who reason thus show unmistakably that they do 
not understand the doctrine of the Incarnation, as it is 
defined and has ever been explained by the Catholic 
Church. Their ideas only reach the old heresy of Nesto- 
rius, or, to go back farther still, owe their existence to 
that spirit of error which, even in the time of the Beloved 
Disciple, attempted to " dissolve Christ," or to divide the 
honor due to our Divine Saviour into two distinct acts — 
adoration to the Divine Person and inferior honor to the 
Humanity sanctified by His Divine presence. Nestorius, 
when it became evident that the Council of Ephesus 
would proclaim Mary to be the Mother of God, was heard 
to exclaim, " As for me, I can never make up my mind 



102 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



co say that a child of two or three months is God, nor to 
adore an infant at its mother's breast." 

Modern unorthodox Christianity, when it does attempt- 
to define its views and opinions on the Incarnation, is 
forced to approve of the views of the old heresiarch of 
Constantinople ; for with Nestorius, it should say, by the 
very fact of condemning the adoration of the Humanity 
of our Lord, that the Sacred Humanity might indeed be 
adored with the Godhead, that is, like a separate being 
by its side, but by a different act. This view, plausible as 
it seems, is condemned as a heresy by the Fifth General 
Council, which pronounces Anathema upon all who do 
not adore the Manhood with one and the same adora- 
tion as that which is paid to the Everlasting Word. 
" If any one says that Christ is to be adored in the two 
natures (where two adorations are introduced), but that 
God the Word Incarnate with His own flesh is not to be 
adored with one adoration, as was always handed down 
by tradition in the Church, let him be anathema" (Fifth 
General Council, Second of Constantinople, col. 8, 9). 

To make the matter clearer. Suppose we abstract the 
notion of the Divine Personality from the Body of 
Christ, and we regard the Heart by itself, or the Head 
crowned with thorns, or the wounded Hands and Feet, 
fixing our eyes only on the image of our Lord, as it is 
represented by painters, would it not in this case be a 
sort of material idolatry to adore these portions of the 
Sacred Humanity ? 

The answer given to this question by our Divines is 
simply this — In the matter of adoration it is unlawful to 
make such an abstraction. If you suppose that a separa- 
tion did take place between the Human nature of Jesus 
Christ and the Divinity, then of course the Body or any 



IN THE SaCKAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 



103 



part of it could not be adored. But this separation can- 
not take place. The two natures united by the bond of 
Personality are united forever and ever, and cannot be 
separated even in imagination. 

To make this plainer still. Suppose we regard the 
Body of our Divine Lord when it was separated from the 
soul, when it lay dead in the lap of the Mother of 
Sorrows, or while it lay in the tomb cold and stiff, was it 
to be adored then ? Undoubtedly it was, because the 
Body was united to the Divinity as well as the soul. The 
Divine Word did not allow the soul to form a barrier 
to His union with the Body. He made the Personal 
union extend to each ; and this union was not broken for 
a moment, even in death. The Sacred Heart of Jesus 
cold in death was intimately united with the Divinity, 
and as such was deserving of the honor and adoration due 
to the second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity. 

Here there is no uncertain sound, not even the whisper 
of a doubt, to distract the devout thoughts concentrated 
on the image of our Divine Lord. We can picture Him 
to ourselves as we please, the Child in the manger of 
Bethlehem ; the Child in the arms of the young Mother, 
and watched over by St. Joseph in the flight into Egypt ; 
the Child disputing with the learned doctors in the 
Temple ; or the Man of Sorrows, sorrowful even unto 
death, crowned with thorns, scourged, or sinking under 
the weight of the heavy cross, or dying on Calvary. Ji 
we prefer to contemplate Him in another form and to 
refresh our Faith by the glorious Mysteries, we may in 
company with the Apostles and the Holy Virgin behold 
Him newly risen, see Him mounting up into heaven, or 
hear the rushing of the Holy Spirit, as they heard it on 
the day of Pentecost. 



104 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



There is no limit to the pious imagination. "We may 
call in the help of genius and art, to enable us to picture 
to our fancy brighter, clearer and more enrapturing 
visions of the birth, life and sufferings, humiliations, 
death, and the glorious triumphs after death. In what- 
ever form the Sacred Humanity most touchingly awakens 
our sympathy, or excites our reverence, we may by every 
means in our power call up the vision, to fix our wayward 
thoughts, and satisfy this craving for something, that, 
through the senses, may appeal most effectually to our 
souls ; and fall down in spirit and adore and love with- 
out one misgiving that we are trespassing on the Divine 
Condescension, or offending the great God by endeavoring 
to communicate with Him, in the only way that satisfies 
the infirmities of weak human nature. 

When the true teaching of Catholic Christianity is 
understood, who for a moment would think of finding 
fault with simple-minded Catholics and children gathered 
round the humble crib, constructed rudely by themselves, 
and communicating to each other by their reverent looks 
and bearing, and the chanting of the touching Christmas 
hymns, something of the feelings which animated the poor 
shepherds on Christmas morning ? Surely no one but a 
blind Pharisee would protest against a devotion so simple 
and so natural as this, particularly when it has the high 
sanction of Him, who loved to gather round Him the little 
children, and to hear their expression of praise and love — 
the most perfect praise ever accorded to Him openly in 
this world. To Catholic Faith, whatever chills devotion 
founded on the teaching and practice of the Church, must 
be contrary to the best instincts of our nature, when they 
are enlivened and exalted by Grace. The earnest Catholic 
cannot help shuddering, when he hears the whining 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 105 



cant of pity deploring piety of this kind, for it seems to 
him as if men, in their spiritual pride and the obstinacy 
which results from, it were rudely thrusting themselves 
between the good God and His children, and attempting 
to rob Him of what is dearest to Him in this world, the 
expression of their unaffected love and heartfelt devotion. 

There is certainly such a thing as over-reverence, and 
gloomy severity in the worship of God ; for it was this 
spirit which was one of the chief causes that separated 
France from God in the period of the great Revolution. 
There were of course other causes, the spirit of licentious- 
ness, and covetousness the offspring of Free-thought ; but 
even temptations like these could scarcely have torn away 
the hearts of the children of the eldest daughter of the 
Church from their good mother, if these hearts had not 
been first estranged from her, by the cold and rigid spirit 
infused into her by unnatural and morbid Jansenism. The 
Church of France, half poisoned by Gallicanism, and 
robbed of her generous and benevolent nature by the 
withering influence of this most insidious of all heresies, 
was regarded as a sort of step-mother by the children 
who once revered and loved her. She denounced the 
consoling and healthy practices of genuine Catholicity, 
and rose up, in her rigid austerity, like a hideous night- 
mare between the good God and His trusting children. 
They dared not receive the Divine Saviour in the Holy 
Communion without a laborious preparation of wearying 
weeks and months. They were cut off from the usual 
evening Benediction. Confession was made something 
like what Protestants mainly regard it — " a cruel butchery 
of the soul." The Rosary and the popular forms of 
devotion^ which the faithful were accustomed to recite 
with the confidence and artless and unaffected ways of 



106 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 

children addressing a loved father or mother, were to be 
drawled forth in measured accents, involving tedious 
rests and pauses for the renewal of attention and the 
fixing of the thoughts, all determined by fanciful rules 
opposed to the natural flow of pious feelings. No won- 
der that the service of God in the family and confrater- 
nity became gradually hateful from this prim Puritanism, 
and that the many who had been taught by pious parents, 
brought up themselves in the wholesome traditions of the 
Faith, to see a kind and indulgent Providence in every 
event of their daily lives, shrunk within themselves at 
the new ideas of a God indifferent to individual piety, 
and gloomily meting out to the predestined elect, the re- 
wards determined by Him irrespective of personal merit 
or demerit, and the punishments allotted by invincible 
fatality from all eternity. 

Every one acquainted with the history of this unfor- 
tunate country well knows that habits of thought, like 
these I have just mentioned, found the middle classes 
and peasantry of France destitute of spiritual aid, when 
the deluge of Free-thought, and the upheavings of Com- 
munism, and whirlwinds of hatred to aristocracy arid 
kingly power and all their associations, burst upon 
society. Prayer had fallen into disuse, the sacraments 
had been long neglected, the churches were deserted. 
There was no anchor of hope, no shelter for the poor 
victims carried about by every blast of the new opinions, 
and driven hither and thither by the leaders of the count- 
less clubs. The consequence naturally was that unbelief 
soon led to social destruction. 

" History repeats itself ;" and if a social revolution one 
of these days startle Europe, there will be no vestiges of 
Faith outside the Catholic Church to stem the flood of 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 107 

evils that are already invading society. If the sacra- 
mental system were something merely human, then it 
would be silly to attach to its disuse, consequences so 
serious and appalling; but when we consider that it is 
Divinely instituted as a help to human weakness, we 
cannot wonder that its voluntary rejection by human 
pride should bring with it effects so disastrous. 

The Catholic Church has taught from the beginning 
that our Divine Lord, even during His stay visibly in this 
world and while His followers were sustained in their 
Faith by His sensible presence, made use of plain out- 
ward means to confer His blessings on those who needed 
them. He did this to prepare future generations for 
this palpable method of bestowing His favors. It 
manifestly needed on His part no material ceremonies to 
heal the afflicted who had recourse to Him. He who, 
when it pleased Him, had changed the whole face of 
chaos, brought forth by His sovereign will from original 
nothing, and formed it into the beautiful world of 
creation, who had said " Let light be," and forthwith 
light beamed on the heaving mass of being external to 
Himself, was in no way obliged to have recourse to ex- 
ternal agency, for the accomplishment of His many acts 
of beneficence. 

He had merely to will interiorly the desired change, 
and at once the blind should see, the lame walk, the deaf 
hear, and the dead arise. But we know that while He 
walked about on this earth, " as many as touched Him 
were made whole" (Mark vi. 56). He seemed to make 
it a necessary condition to the effect of His healing 
power, that He should "touch" those who applied to 
Him for relief. He, who could easily have produced all 
the effects of Infinite power by His mere word, or rather 



108 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



by His will alone (for even words are sacramenta, 
means), yet was pleased to act upon His creatures by the 
intervening agency of matter. 

In healing the sick, He was accustomed, as we read in 
St. Mark, to " lay His hands npon them ;" and they were 
evidently aware of His sacramental action. He confirmed 
their ideas in a most remarkable manner; for, as the 
sacred text tells us, " He took the deaf and dumb man 
apart, and putting His fingers into his ears, and spitting 
touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, He 
groaned, and said to him Ephpheta, which is Be thou 
opened" (Mark vii. 33). And in a still more striking 
manner He brought out this sacramental way of action 
in the cure of the blind man recorded by St. John. For 
" He spat upon the ground, and made clay of the spittle, 
and spread the clay upon his eyes, and said, Go wash in 
the pool of Siloe " (John ix. 6, 7). 

Surely there must have been some meaning attached to 
this constant mode of action. It would be worse than 
blasphemous to assert that He acted in this way through 
mere caprice, or influenced by the feeling of a common 
juggler, to delude the senses of those " who watched 
Him." And what other cause can reasonably be as- 
signed than to train His disciples to mark the Divine 
plan on which the Incarnation rests, of leading men, the 
creatures of sense, to receive with child-like faith the 
manifestations of Infinite Condescension. 

No teaching can be conceived more in harmony with 
this idea, than that of the Catholic Church, as expressed 
by the Council of Trent. " A sacrament," according to 
the Catechism of the Council, "is an outward sign, 
which, in virtue of the Divine institution, not only 
typifies, but actually works holiness and justice." Our 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 



109 



Divine Lord wrought cures not only on the afflicted body 
by means of touch and other sensible acts, but taught 
His disciples, that the ills of the soul were to be healed 
by the same external agency. I need not enter into the 
proofs of this position further than to call attention to 
the instruction given by Him to Mcodemus, on the 
curative effects of Baptism : " Amen, Amen I say to 
thee," are His words to the learned Jewish doctor, " ex- 
cept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God " (John iii. 5). Nicodemus understood these words 
in a carnal sense, and asked for an explanation. Our 
Lord gives it as follows : " Amen, Amen I say to thee, 
unless any one be born again of water and the Holy 
Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." No 
one can read this passage without marking the connection 
which our Saviour establishes between the " weak and 
needy element" of water, and the omnipotent Spirit of 
God ; water not the sign only, but the efficient cause, 
as well as the Holy Ghost, of effecting the " new birth," 
or this cleansing the soul from sin. 

If it occurs to any one to challenge this doctrine, and 
to endeavor to explain it in some metaphorical sense, he 
can no more succeed, than if he attempted to rob the ex- 
ternal action in the cure of the blind man, of its power 
in effecting the cure. If he asserts that it is absurd to 
unite the material instrument of water with the gift of 
God, he is met at once by the action of the Apostolic 
Church, which evidently connected with the use of water 
the cleansing of the soul from sin. " See," said the 
Ethiopian convert to Philip the Deacon, " here is water ; 
what doth hinder me from being baptized?" In the 
tenth chapter of the Acts, when the unmistakable signs 
of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the converted Gen- 



110 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED 



tiles were clearly noticed by all present, St. Peter says — 
" Can any man forbid water that these should not be 
baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as 
we?" (Acts x. 47.) Ananias says to St. Paul, " Eise up, 
and be baptized, and wash away thy sins" (Acts xxii. 16). 

There are many other texts bearing upon the same 
point, but in a work like this, meant for the general pub- 
lic, it would be out of place to pile up quotations. He 
u who runs may read " that there is abundant proof from 
what I have said, that our Divine Lord connected not 
only the healing of bodily ills, but those of the soul also, 
with the use of material instruments. 

This is, the sacramental principle, which, I say, flows 
almost naturally and directly from the proper under- 
standing of the mystery of the Incarnation. We, by 
means of these " beggarly elements" of nature, " become 
sharers of His Divinity who deigned to become a partaker 
of our Humanity." 

The great mistake of the so-called Reformers consisted 
in this, that they yielded to the notions of that false 
spiritualism which, about the period of the uprising 
against the teaching of the Church, affected so many 
minds. They could not see, or rather they would not 
see, that the obvious principle of the sacramental system, 
as taught by our Divine Lord, was to humble human 
arrogance and pride, and to inculcate the humiliating 
lesson that, as man had ignominiously delivered himself 
over to the domain of the baser world, so he needs the 
mediation of this earth, to rise above it. Hence, accord- 
ing to them, the sacraments are only pledges of the truth 
of the Divine promises for the forgiveness of sins. It 
was too humiliating to believe that the elements of matter 
could have, even by the Divine institution, the power to 



IN THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 



Ill 



effect this transformation. But, if we mark the use 
made by our Divine Lord of these elements, in the re- 
generation of a fallen world, we shall see, with a force 
that bears down all the resistance of proud reason, that 
this was actually an essential part of the economy of 
salvation. 

The following eloquent words of Father Oakley bring 
this truth so powerfully before us, that I prefer to quote 
them, than to develop the point myself : 

" Three out of the four great elements of nature are 
thus directly named in Scripture, as having been reclaimed 
from the power of the evil one, and consecrated to Divine 
uses. The water, once employed as the terrible minister 
of God's avenging power for the destruction of the 
world, is now converted into the instrument of His sav- 
ing grace ; the air, that treacherous material of the ' wind 
and storm,' when collected and condensed into which it 
6 fulfils His word ' and desolates the smiling face of the 
earth, enters within the sacred portals of that holiest of 
material temples, the Human Body of our Incarnate 
Lord, and reissues from it in the Divine Breath, which 
imparts to the first priests of the Church the power to 
forgive sin : the earth, doomed by the voice of God, at the 
Fall to yield the baneful fruit of the primeval curse, is 
moulded by the plastic hand which made it into a com- 
post of sweet medicinal virtue. The fourth great ele- 
ment of nature received its consecration, too, on the Day 
of Pentecost ; and when the Christian beholds that most 
awful of all the scourges of sin and weapons of chastise- 
ment, the material fire, he can contemplate it, not as the 
agent which swept from the earth they polluted, the 
cities of the plain, or which is to burn up this beautiful 
but devoted world, and itself to be gifted with immortal- 



112 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY DEVELOPED. 



ity, to the end that it may accomplish God's purposes 
upon the wicked, but as the substance which embodied 
the great Pentecostal gift — the symbol, not of wrath, but 
of the zeal of God, which then heralded the conversion 
of the world, and now burns with bright innocuous light 
as the watch-fire of His love before the Tabernacle of the 
Blessed Sacrament. Animated and invigorated with this 
plentiful benediction vouchsafed to us in the sacraments, 
it is no wonder that the life of the Catholic Church 
should be as vigorous now as it was in the beginning." 

I will endeavor to trace, in the following chapter, the 
undying influence of the sacraments in sustaining the 
spirited energy of those to whom in a special manner has 
been committed her activity in this world — the clergy 
and religious orders. 



PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 113 



CHAPTEE Y. 
Catholic Christianity in Some Practical Aspects. 

IT is chiefly in times of great social cataclysms, when 
law and order are for a while overpowered, and 
men are whirled hither and thither by the wild fury of 
revolution, that the calm enduring spirit and determined 
courage of Catholic Christianity most strikingly displays 
itself. No one can read the history of the late reign 
of terror in Paris, without meeting with many episodes 
in which the majestic character of true religion shines 
forth as brilliantly as it did when the infant Church was 
struggling against the persecutions of the Roman Empire. 
The Eev. Father Perraud, priest of the Oratory, at the 
close of his magnificent sermon on the martyred Arch- 
bishop Darboy, exclaims, " Christianity ! verily and in- 
deed it shows itself here as it w^as wont to do in the early 
days of its history. The world has waned old, but 
Christianity has not altered. It still brings forth the 
same faith, the same spirit of forbearance, the same 
serenity, the same peaceable and humble fortitude. 
Throughout every age, our martyrs walk forth hand 
in hand and maintain the same tradition." Whilst we 
read the account given of the slaughter of the Arch- 
bishop and his five companions, at the prison of La 
Eoquette, we are carried back in spirit to the days of the 
Catacombs. 

Often it happened, in the times of the persecution of 
the early Church, that the Catacombs, the ordinary re- 



114 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



fuge of the Christians, were rudely broken into, and 
there in the dark passages, the Christians, unseen by any 
eyes but those of God and His angels, were cruelly mur- 
dered. The infuriated soldiery found the object of their 
search often, as in the case of Pope Stephen the First, 
either engaged in offering up the Holy Sacrifice, or 
assisting at this sacred rite. 

There is an old inscription, belonging to the time of 
Antoninus Pius, who began to reign in 138 a.d., which 
brings all this vividly before us. It records in a very 
beautiful and feeling manner, the death of one Alexander, 
who was slain as he knelt at the altar about to sacrifice, 
and it deplores the wretched times, when there was no 
security for the persecuted even in the caverns of the 
earth, and when their bodies were deprived of decent 
burial. 

How like is all this to the secret communion of the 
hostages in their prison, the Blessed Sacrament having 
been conveyed to them in such a way as not to attract 
the notice of their guards ; and then the secret death, 
in the dark corner of the winding alley between the 
prison and the outer rampart, and the mutilated bodies 
flung into a common grave ! 

When in the June of 1875 I visited the present Arch- 
bishop of Paris I could not help realizing to myself, as I 
ascended the staircase of the palace, the scene enacted in 
that very spot, when the good and amiable Monseigneur 
Darboy was dragged away a prisoner by a fiendish mob. 
"What a worthy follower of his Divine Master ! No re- 
sistance, no reproach, as calmly dignified then, as when, 
arm in arm with his friend the President Bonjean, 
amidst the grossest insults, he proceeded with dauntless 
courage to the place of execution. 



IN SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 115 



It is easy for natural courage to face death, bravely in 
the battlefield, or when one's friends are near to sustain, 
by their sympathy, the fortitude of the sufferers. But it 
is real religion alone that enables its children to go 
forth serenely, calmly, and with humble fortitude, and 
even with a holy joy, when there is no accusation, no 
shadow of any crime, and death, violent and ignominious 
as men can make it, is robbed of every gleam of earthly 
consolation. So died the brave Archbishop and his 
brave priests in the prison of La Roquette. 

And so, if God requires it, are ready to die for the 
honor and glory of His name thousands and tens of 
thousands of pious men and women, who deem it their 
greatest happiness to have left all things for the sake of 
Jesus Christ, and who are full of hope that if they were 
further called to die like their Divine Master amidst 
mockery and insults, that He would give them the courage 
and resolution to follow Him, bearing His cross to the 
very end. 

"When the Jesuit Fathers left Grahamstown, in the 
April of 1879, for the Yalley of the Zambesi many 
Protestant gentlemen who had made their acquaintance, 
and had learned to appreciate their splendid gifts of edu- 
cation and training, wondered how such men could go 
forth with joy and gladness into the wilderness to die for 
savages, who could never appreciate their worth, and 
would never be grateful for sacrifices so great. The world 
calls this enthusiasm, or fanaticism, or superstitious piety ; 
but such is not the estimate of Catholic Christianity. 

The Catholic Church regards those "to whom it is 
given" to accept so glorious a vocation, and to be faithful 
to it to the end, as the chosen followers of the Crucified, 
to whom will be secured for all eternity a bright crown 



116 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



of glory, infinitely surpassing all that this world could 
give them. There is no such thing as pious sentimen- 
talism in the men and women whom our Divine Lord 
calls to follow Him, in the path of perfect renunciation. 
There may be a generous enthusiasm or a spirit of heroic 
devotion in the soul of the young ecclesiastic or the 
young religious, who at first feels the whisperings of 
Divine grace and the interior call, " If thou wilt be per- 
fect, go, sell what thou hast, and come, follow me" (Matt, 
xix. 21). But this ardent feeling soon settles down into 
a firm purpose. Humility, obedience, the renunciation 
of self, also strongly insisted on in the training of those 
who desire to serve God in the spirit of a true vocation, 
leave no place, after a time, for the natural suggestions of 
unbridled self -direction. 

This is one of the grand secrets of Catholic Christian- 
ity, not made a secret by the Church, or because she in 
any way conceals her doctrine, but hidden from the eyes 
of the frivolous and unbelieving world. If the novice per- 
sists in nursing a mere sentimental piety, is good only by 
fits and starts, according as the natural feelings are swayed 
by motions congenial to them, is hurt by trials of obedi- 
ence and humiliations, is always cherishing the pseudo- 
martyr spirit, and grieving, and " looking back," the trial 
of earnestness will in time manifest the absence of the 
right spirit. Sooner or later, the Superior will, in the dis- 
charge of a most important duty, rendered imperative by 
the strict discipline of the Church, have to say, " ' No man 
putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit 
for the kingdom of God' [Luke ix. 62]. In the name of 
God, return to the world, you may serve Him there with 
fidelity, He has not called you to follow Him in the state 
of religious perfection." 



IN SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



117 



It is the absolute ignorance which prevails outside the 
Catholic Church, and amongst uninstructed and worldly- 
minded Catholics of the nature and obligations of a real 
vocation, that creates such false impressions about the 
manner in which Superiors deal with young people who 
believe they are called to leave all things and follow 
Christ. They will say for example, that it is wrong in 
those, who ought to understand the rash impulses of 
youth to encourage such an impression. Parents will feel 
aggrieved that their " hope and pride" and comfort in 
this world have abandoned them. And there will be any 
amount of real or affected sympathy amongst friends for 
the young person, who promised to be so great an orna- 
ment to society, and who is now " shut up" in a convent 
or a seminary. But if the vocation prove a real one, if 
the true gold manifests itself in the crucible of the Novi- 
tiate, how misplaced is all this false sympathy, and how 
serious is the position before God of those, who have pre- 
sumed to stand between Him and the object of His fond- 
est love ! No wonder that the Church, while she warns 
under pain of her severest censures all Superiors to prove 
and test with the greatest care the reality of a vocation, 
excommunicates whoever will dare knowingly and wil- 
fully to interfere with the firm purpose of those who 
believe, with the approval of their spiritual director, that 
they have been really invited by God to leave the world 
and to enter into His service. 

It is the same ignorance of the spirit and hidden life 
of a good priest or fervent religious, which disposes the 
public at once to take up any tale of scandal that is pro- 
pagated by the enemies of the Church. Sensational 
stories of the "Maria Monk" style will be read with 
avidity by thousands, who would regard it, as an intoler- 



118 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



able bore, to bear or read anything tbat Catholicity bas 
to say about tbe excellence of tbe religious life, or tbe 
sublime character of tbe priestbood. They have made 
up their minds that the state of those whose " solicitude," 
as St. Paul expresses it, is only " for the things that be- 
long to the Lord, how they may please God " (1 Cor. 
vii. 32), is an unnatural state, and that the life of nuns 
and priests who do not marry is something too ex- 
alted for ordinary mortals. So when one of these base 
publications, issued by persons, who rely for their gain on 
the credulity and vitiated and prurient taste of the igno- 
rant and fanatical rabble, comes within their reach, they 
eagerly devour the sickening details, not perhaps for the 
gratification of sensual curiosity so much as to prove the 
correctness of their estimate of humanity. And never 
doubting of the truth of the narrative, or questioning its 
credibility, they at once congratulate themselves on the 
soundness of their judgment. " It is only," they say, " what 
might be expected ; human nature is human nature all the 
world over, and people who aim at heights beyond their 
fellows must expect sooner or later an ignominious fall." 
How little do they, who think or speak thus, know of the 
ways of God ! How completely ignorant are they of the 
very elements of a life really and wholly devoted to God, 
who entertain seriously these ignoble, low, and vulgar 
sentiments ! 

They who are really called to follow their Divine 
Model in the way of genuine self-renunciation, under- 
stand better than any one else that " the kingdom of 
Heaven suffers violence, and that the violent only attain 
to it." They know that "to make their calling and 
election sure," they must " work out their salvation with 
fear and trembling ; " they must " watch and pray," and 



I]ST SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



119 



" be never weary." They feel that their very profession 
exposes them, more than ordinary Christians, to the as- 
saults of temptation ; and so they constantly " strive" to 
be found worthy to enter the narrow way that leads to 
life. This thorough conviction of their own natural 
weakness and nn worthiness of the Divine predilection is 
the very groundwork of the whole spiritual life. With- 
out this real and practical belief, that it is God alone 
who can make that possible, which is beyond the powers 
of nature, and who " will perfect the good work which 
He has begun" in them, they would be building their 
spiritual edifice on sand, or something as frothy and un- 
stable as mere emotional sentimentalism. 

Worldly people are apt to think that the religious dress, 
and the open profession to live for God alone, must 
carry with it a sense of pharisaical pride ; but never was 
there so great a mistake. Priests and religious know well 
that they are not better than others, by the fact of hav- 
ing been called to a more perfect state. This gratuitous 
grace of a vocation has been bestowed upon them, not 
on account of any merits of their own, but through God's 
pure mercy ; and they clearly understand that " to whom 
much is given, from them much will be expected." In 
taking on them the yoke of religion and the livery of 
Christ, they have in reality only taken up the cross, and 
the aim of their lives must be to follow humbly in His 
footsteps, who bore it in the midst of ignominy and in- 
sult. The doctrine of the Catholic Church on the much 
misunderstood subject of "vocation" is so clearly and 
beautifully expressed by Father Oakley, in his admirable 
little book, " The Church of the Bible," that I cannot 
forbear giving an extract : 

" All Christians are 4 called to be saints ' (1 Cor. i. 2). 



120 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



All are called to a state of perfection (Matt. v. 48), but 
not all to the same state. There are divers 6 mansions ' 
in the earthly as in the heavenly kingdom of God ; vari- 
ous grades of merit in the one as of glory in the other ; 
different stages or elevations of spiritual and moral 
responsibility, opportunity, and desert. Each of these 
states has its own proper 'element,' which to such as 
are created for it, is congenial ; and to such as are not, 
is oppressive if too high — meagre and unsatisfactory, if 
too low. If those who are called to a lower level of per- 
fection, find themselves perchance in a higher, they are 
like creatures of earth, when suddenly brought into the 
highly rarefied atmosphere of some lofty mountain. They 
are distressed, and at length they droop and drop. Souls 
cannot rise above their proper spiritual level. They 
whose place is the more elevated region of responsibility 
can live indeed, in the lower : but their powers of action 
are cramped, and the true end of their being is thwarted, 
if not frustrated. It is in the body spiritual as in the 
body social and political. One has his gift after this man- 
ner, and another after that. Some are, as we say, i born 
to great things,' manifesting even in childhood, the germ 
of their future proficiency. The Christian warfare, like 
the battlefield of nations, has its heroes, and when such 
as are born to heroic distinction, are employed in a lim- 
ited sphere of action, we say that they are ' out of their 
place.' Thus in the Church : the vocation of some is to 
marry, of others to remain unmarried ; of some to quit 
the world, of others to mix with it for its advantage ; of 
some to give the superfluity of their wealth to God and 
the poor, of others ' to leave all that they possess ' for 
the higher departments of the Christian service ; of some 
to cultivate the temper of obedience with a proper reserve 



IN SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



121 



in favor of their own judgment, of others to resign their 
conscience into another's keeping in all that is not mani- 
fest sin. This is the Church's doctrine ; and it is most 
obviously and unquestionably borne out by the very letter 
of the Bible." 

If this doctrine were clearly understood, it would ex- 
plain much that is marvellous in the ordinary life of 
Catholic Christianity. " How," it is constantly said in 
this colony, as it is said elsewhere, — " how do priests get 
on with their churches and institutions ? How are nuns 
able to build their convents and develop their schools ? 
Their people are generally poor, and yet they invariably 
succeed." 

The answer is plain to any one of ordinary penetration. 
They succeed, because it is their special work, the work 
to which they believe they have been called ; and their 
hearts and souls are, as a rule, concentrated in this work. 
They are thoroughly in earnest, just as much as worldly 
people are to make a fortune, and be successful in life. 
If the work which they set before them is within their 
means, if it has been prudently and wisely undertaken, 
it is bound to go through. If not within the lifetime of 
this priest or that superior, it will be accomplished by 
some one else who will take it up in the same spirit 
and carry it through as a matter of course. 

" How is it," again it will be said, " with this Religious 
order ; it is always in trouble, always persecuted, always 
abused and hated by the world, and yet it flourishes ?" 
In fact we may put those expressions of wonderment in 
the very words of the Apostle — " As dying and behold 
we live ; as chastised and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet 
always rejoicing : as needy, yet enriching many ; as hav- 
ing nothing and possessing all things" (2 Cor. vi. 9, 



122 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



10). That one answer, already given, explains every- 
thing. They seriously and deliberately believe with 
entire conviction, that they have been called to this par- 
ticular state, and that nothing happens to them, while they 
are endeavoring to fulfil its duties and obligations, but 
by the Divine appointment. Therefore such as these 
can say with the Apostle, " In all things we suffer tribu- 
lation, but are not distressed ; we are straitened, but are 
not destitute ; we suffer persecution, but we are not for- 
saken ; we are cast down, but we perish not" (2 Cor. 
iv. 8, 9). 

Here lies the secret of the vigorous life of the Catholic 
Church. If for a moment we do not attend to the su- 
pernatural inner life of God's Holy Spirit animating the 
entire body of the Church, we shall see that all her 
priests and Religious are individually called to do God's 
own work in God's own way. 

There is no sentimental straining after this idea. It is 
a settled and sure conviction in the inmost soul of every 
one, who has received the grace of a Vocation to the sacred 
ministry, or to serve God alone in the Religious life ; and 
therefore in whatever is undertaken purely and simply 
for God, they believe they must be successful, not in- 
deed successful in the sense in which this word is under- 
stood generally, not that the work will be carried through 
so as to gain the applause of men, or fully and fairly ac- 
complished by energy and perseverance ; but that it will 
be done in the manner God wills it to be done, and with 
that amount of satisfactory results which He is pleased 
to accord to it. 

This is one reason why the Church must ever and 
always be victorious in her struggle with the world. 
The spirit never dies in those to whom her interests are 



I1ST SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



123 



chiefly committed. During the three hundred years, the 
Church battled with the power of Imperial Rome, and 
throughout all the fearful persecutions of the Pagan 
Caesars, though swept from the face of the earth, and 
compelled to hide its head in the caverns of the dead, its 
spirit was irrepressible. The successors of St. Peter, 
from the depths of the Catacombs, ruled the Faithful 
spread throughout the vast provinces of the empire, sent 
forth Bishops and devoted Missionaries, who contrived 
to fulfil their arduous duties in the very palaces and 
courts of their persecutors ; so that, when peace came at 
last, it was found that baffled and discomfited paganism 
preserved only the mere external signs of a worthless 
and hollow existence. 

I would call special attention to this persistent and 
unyielding spirit of Catholic Christianity. It is always 
the same. Persecution may for a time retard its prog- 
ress. Generation after generation may see it as if thrown 
back, defeated and powerless, and notice that its sphere of 
action is growing narrower and more circumscribed ; but 
it lives all the time with the immortal life and spirit in- 
fused into it by its Founder ; and, when the pressure is 
removed, it bursts forth again in all its vigor. 

Look at Ireland, when Catholic Emancipation broke 
the chains of the most oppressive penal code that ever 
fettered religious liberty. Notwithstanding her poverty, 
and the crushing weight of debt and taxation heaped 
upon her by the " Union," in less than half a century, the 
whole land was covered with beautiful churches, and con- 
vents, and Catholic Institutions of every kind, that excite 
the wonder and admiration of every stranger who visits 
her shores. There was nothing violent or spasmodic in 
all this. It was a steady healthy growth, that showed it- 



124 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



self throughout the whole island, as soon as the restrictions 
were removed. 

I believe that every honest man, who is not the uncon- 
scious slave of tyrannical prejudices, and whose percep- 
tions are not hopelessly dimmed and overshadowed by 
bigoted misrepresentation, must see in this constant growth 
and development, when circumstances are even in the 
least degree favorable, a power that manifests its Divine 
origin. It is not in ordinary nature to sustain itself thus 
for long centuries of cruel oppression, and to live with 
unfailing vigor, while every evil influence that could, 
humanly speaking, blight and poison its existence, was 
at work to destroy it ; and then, at the first appearance of 
a fair season, to rise up as it were with giant growth, and 
push forth its branches and flowers and f raits, with an 
energy that seems all the greater from being restrained 
and crushed down for such a length of time. 

If we ask ourselves why is there this marked difference 
between " the everlasting Church," and all other Institu- 
tions in the world — that, whereas the latter soon perish 
and become extinct under long-continued adversity, the 
Catholic Church acquires new life and strength from the 
worst forms of persecution, we can only answer that the 
life and soul and spirit of the Church is the immortal 
Spirit of God Himself. This constant indwelling of the 
Spirit of Truth is a " fountain of water springing up into 
everlasting life;" and when the invigorating waters, 
meant in Divine mercy to be poured out upon the na- 
tions, are dammed up by the perverse ingenuity of man, 
and the powers of hell, they naturally f ertilize the Church 
herself, and gather strength for the day of deliverance. 

But, if considering further that the Church is a society 
composed of individual human beings, we ask ourselves 



IN SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



125 



how is the Divine life communicated to every member ; 
how are Catholics sustained in the varied conflicts often 
so painful and trying to weak human nature, we then 
behold, in all its beauty, the plan contrived by Infinite 
Wisdom and Love to preserve even the weakest of her 
children, who will obey her voice and look up to her with 
confidence and respect. It was not enough to satisfy the 
care of our Divine Eedeemer, that all who " believe in 
Him and keep His word" should be comforted and sus- 
tained by the " rock" and " pillar and ground of truth," 
it did not satisfy His compassionate love to unfold, in the 
beautiful and touching parables of the Gospel, how "the 
good Shepherd " cared for the weak and little ones of the 
fold. These consoling proofs of the largeness of His 
paternal heart might seem too vague and indefinite ; and 
therefore He gave us all a sensible pledge and assurance 
of an intimate union with Himself in the Holy Commu- 
nion. He Himself would abide forever with each of us 
who desired it, under the appearance of our ordinary 
food, to be our helper in the hour of trial, and to make 
us feel and know beyond all doubt, that we were individu- 
ally sharers in His Divinity, and therefore able to en- 
counter all the evils and dangers with which earth and 
hell could threaten us. 

I know it must be difficult for those who are not 
Catholics to realize to themselves anything like this 
Catholic Christianity, so strikingly brought forth in the 
abiding presence of our Saviour in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. They have been taught to regard it as some- 
thing absurd, impossible, and contradictory. But, if, 
with their eyes fixed on the mystery of the Incarnation, 
contemplating God made manifest in the flesh, receiving 
at it were the Child Jesus from the hands of the Yirgin- 



126 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



Mother, and like the happy Simeon, holding in their 
arms " their salvation," they tried to picture to themselves 
the Catholic doctrine, they would, I believe, be forced, in 
spite of themselves and their prejudices, to exclaim — 
" How beautiful ! How Divine ! Oh that such a Faith 
could be a reality ! If Catholics do indeed believe with 
a firm and undoubting faith, that they actually embrace 
their Saviour, and are made one with Him, then indeed it 
is no wonder that the Saints and Martyrs had courage 
and strength to suffer all torments and persecutions for 
the sake of Christ ; and that they, who receive a special 
call to follow Him, are able effectually to renounce all 
things — and attach themselves entirely to Him." 

It is easy for the greatest stranger to Catholic truth, 
the moment he has caught a glimpse of this mystery, to 
understand that the good priest must be ever ready to 
give his life for the flock ; that he heeds not the dread 
plague, nor the danger of infection from deadly fever or 
pestilence, in the discharge of his duty. It is only natural, 
he will admit, that the earnest Religious, and the fervent 
nun, must, with a firm belief in the Blessed Sacrament, 
enjoy a Paradise on earth. How delightful to be able at 
any time to go before the Tabernacle, and with the eyes 
of Faith to behold Jesus Himself watching and waiting 
and welcoming those who come to visit Him. If I might 
venture to lift a little the veil that hides the interior life 
not only of the fervent priest or nun, but of the good 
pious Catholic, who tries, in the midst of a busy world, 
and many pressing cares and solicitudes, to live and walk 
in God's Holy Presence, how wonderful it would all 
seem to those, who have been taught to regard Our Holy 
Religion as a mass of silly superstitions ! The morning 
meditation, the Colloquy of the Soul with God, the pious 



ITT SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



127 



affections and desires, the practical resolutions ; then the 
Holy Mass, and the transports of loving confidence, as the 
inward cry goes up — " Look on the face of Thy Christ, and 
for His sake have mercy" — all these thoughts should, if he 
once allowed the possibility of their truth to come near 
him, fill his soul with reverent admiration. 

With what a new meaning the " Kyrie eleison" and 
the "Agnus Dei" and the " Gloria in excelsis" known 
before only perhaps in their musical associations, fiash 
upon the soul of a stranger to our Faith, as, helped by the 
Incarnation, bearing, as I have imagined it, the Divine 
Infant in his arms, he catches just a passing vision of the 
sublime grandeur of Catholic Christianity. With what 
awe would not such a one, w T hile under these impressions 
enter into a Catholic Church, where, by the light burning 
before the altar, he knows the Blessed Sacrament is pre- 
served. Do not the words of Holy Writ occur to him — 
" How terrible is this place ! This is no other but the 
house of God and the gate of Heaven " (Gen. xxviii. 17) ? 

How different are the ceremonies, and the Vestments, 
and so many things about the Sanctuary, that once per- 
haps excited only feelings of pity and contempt for 
Catholics, when they are seen by the light of even one ray 
of Faith in the Real Presence ! I can well imagine the 
sense of shame and confusion, that must overwhelm a well- 
ordered mind and an honest nature, as it allows the dread 
thought to enter — " What if this Religion, which I once 
fancied to be so silly and puerile, should be the only true 
Religion ! Certainly it was once the only Faith of the 
whole Christian world." 

There cannot be a reasonable doubt, from the con- 
struction of the chapels in the Catacombs, and the inscrip- 
tions to be found there, that the Mass was celebrated in 



128 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



these vaults : and that men and women knelt around an 
altar, " whence," as St. Augustine expresses it, " was dis- 
pensed that Holy Victim, Who has cancelled the hand- 
writing that stood against us." 

In the subterranean Church of St. Clement's, may be 
seen, represented in the old frescos, unmistakable by 
the inscriptions, Clement himself, who conversed with 
St. Peter, clad in the same shaped Vestments worn now 
by priests at Mass, and standing at an altar, with his face 
turned towards it, and away from the people. It is not 
therefore, as non-Catholics represent it, a new rite un- 
known in Apostolic times. It is certainly, as shown by 
these venerable monuments, which speak for them- 
selves, more than seventeen hundred years ago, when the 
Mass was celebrated with lamps and lights and other 
symbols of Faith and piety. How overpowering too is 
the testimony of the ancient Liturgies, still preserved in 
all their integrity, scarcely committed to writing during 
the three hundred years of persecution, when the " Dis- 
cipline of the secret" was in force, and everything con- 
nected with the Divine worship was carefully concealed 
from the prying eyes of irreverent Pagans, and in con- 
sequence differing in form for each great Church, yet 
when compared agreeing perfectly in substance, and all 
testifying to the fact, that, in the days of Oonstantine, 
Christians worshipped as Catholics do now. When by 
the edict of the first Christian emperor, the Church was 
allowed to come forth from its hiding-places, and to erect 
Basilicas and large buildings for the assembly of the 
Faithful, they assisted at a sacrifice, which they believed 
to be the very same as that of Calvary ; in which, as in 
the Holy Mass of the present time, the real Body and 
Blood of Jesus Christ were offered up, to apply the 



IN SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 129 



merits of Christ's death for the benefit of the worship- 
pers and their deceased relatives and friends, and then 
communicated, by the hands of the priest, to those who 
desired to receive the Heavenly Gift. 

These are I believe the considerations that nrast pass 
through the mind of a fairly educated non-Catholic, 
who is tolerably acquainted with the history of the 
early Christian times. And, if, as I suppose, he en- 
deavors while he reads, to keep before his eyes the great 
mystery of the Incarnation, as it was brought before 
the shepherds in the stable of Bethlehem, he cannot 
help but see, in the worship of the Catholic Church 
and her sacraments, the almost necessary complement 
of this fundamental article of Christian Belief. 

Slight and imperfect as this brief glance may be, at 
the real nature of Catholic Christianity in its outward 
worship, and external ceremonial, it is enongh to in- 
dicate the undying energy and the sound vitality which 
must animate the children of the Church, while they 
receive with docility and respect the teaching of their 
venerable mother. 

It would only encumber this chapter if I were to point 
out more clearly how the seven sacraments are intimately 
connected with the one great sacrament of the New 
Law — the Incarnation. If it be once understood, that the 
Incarnation is a reality ; in other words, that the Eternal 
Word " by Whom all things were made," at a certain 
definite time, nearly nineteen hundred years ago, was 
born into this world, had a mother who gave to Him her 
flesh and blood, and nursed and suckled Him, and watched 
over Him in the years of helpless infancy, and brought 
Him up to manhood ; if it be firmly believed that Jesus 
Christ, the Son of Mary, is one individual person with 



130 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



God the Son, as truly and as perfectly God as He is 
man ; that this Person suffered in His soul and Body, and 
died npon the cross, then I maintain that there cannot 
be a shadow of reasonable difficulty in believing what the 
Church has ever taught concerning the Blessed Eucharist. 
The real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the 
Mass and Holy Communion is nothing more or less than 
the wonderful means by which the fruits of the Atone- 
ment have been, from the night of the Last Supper, are 
now, and will be to the end of time, brought home to 
the hearts of believers who will only " prove themselves," 
and worthily partake of these Heavenly favors. 

This short sketch in bare outline of Catholic Belief, in 
its most essential attributes, provided it be calmly and 
seriously examined, will satisfy any reasonable non- 
Catholic, that there is reason for the hope, that burns 
brightly in the soul of every faithful member of this 
great body, that as the Church has triumphed over the 
heresies and errors of past ages, so will it, in God's own 
good time, prevail over the wild theories of present Un- 
belief. Men who firmly believe that God Incarnate is 
with them in all their ways, ever near them, ready to be 
made one with them whenever they desire it, " Christi- 
pTieroi" or Christ-bearers, as St. Cyril loved to call his 
people, must be invincible forever. Ridicule, blasphemy, 
outspoken contempt of God and Holy things, will only 
kindle more and more the Faith of those who, in obedi- 
ence to our Divine Lord, " hear the Church," and learn 
from her lips what they are to believe about every tittle 
of the Divine Message. Every insult and injury offered 
by Unbelievers to Christ and His work in this world, can 
have no other effect than to make us love Him more and 
more, Who, for us men and our salvation, came down 



IT* SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS. 



131 



from Heaven and dwelt among us once in the visible 
flesh : and now is seen, by the eye of Faith, abiding with 
us, walking in our midst, and touching us with His heal- 
ing hand in all the sacraments. 

In the next chapter, I mean to show that, with all its 
supernatural helps, the Church is composed of men, and 
not of angels ; and that we must always, in considering 
its action and progress, regard this human element, as 
God regards it, with patience and compassion. 



132 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER VI. 

A Glimpse of Catholic Christianity as seen by 

Faith. 

I HAVE already in Chapter III. noticed in passing, a 
clever ad hominem argument against the eternity 
of punishment, and it may be as well to develop it in 
connection with the imperfections of practical Faith in 
the consoling mysteries of Catholic Christianity, which 
will form the subject of the present chapter. 

Men who combat the eternal and awful sanction of the 
Divine Law, say this dogma, that the wicked will burn 
forever and ever, cannot be true, because no one actually 
and really believes it. Just picture to yourselves, they 
say to the public, what it is to suffer in a roasting fire, 
even for the few moments that life could endure so hor- 
rible a torment, imagine that in some extraordinary 
way, life is sustained for hours, and days, and years, and 
ages, and millions of ages, and you will find that the 
mind breaks down in the attempt to conceive so terrible 
an evil. Suppose that you prolong the torture only for 
some limited period — for a year or two, and that it is not 
a human being, but some brute animal that suffers, why 
the heart sickens and the brain reels at the horrible idea. 
Surely, they conclude, it has never entered into your mind 
to conceive the possibility of a fate so terrible being 
actually endured by some one dear to you. The bare 
thought of anything so dreadful would destroy every 
germ of earthly comfort and happiness. Tou would have 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



133 



constantly before your imagination, day and night, the 
shrieks of the unfortunate victim. You could not sleep, 
you could not take your meals, you would go mad. But 
none of these effects are noticeable even in pious Chris- 
tians. There is no case on record where belief in the 
eternity of punishment has produced these effects, and 
consequently people only say that they hold this belief ; 
it is impossible that it could be a settled conviction. 

I have put the argument as forcibly as I could, because 
it is dangerously insidious particularly to weak, and 
unenlightened, and unreflecting Faith. The answer to it 
will involve the answer to the objection which I mean to 
meet in this chapter. 

In the first place then, this application of the properties 
of a material fire, this "roasting," etc., to the fire of hell, 
is not sanctioned by any definition of the Church. The 
Church does not anywhere teach in precise terms that 
there is an eternal fire in the sense in which infidel writers 
make it the object of their abuse and denunciation. She 
teaches indeed that there is an eternal pain of " sense," 
as well as an eternal pain of " loss" for those who, by 
their own most grievous fault, and by the voluntary and 
deliberate abuse of their free-will, have obstinately re- 
nounced God and the future glory which He so freely 
offers us. "Whenever she speaks of the sad fate of the 
reprobate, she uses the terrible words of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures — " Depart ye accursed into everlasting fire" (Matt, 
xxv. 41). But she has never declared that we are to 
understand this " fire" as meaning a fire like that to which 
we are accustomed in this world. Holy writers treating 
on the subject tell us, that the fire in hell is created only 
for torment, and not for any of the purposes to which we 
are accustomed to apply it in this world. And we know 



134 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



that it must possess peculiar properties incompatible with 
the fire that cooks our food, or ministers to our comfort, 
because it must affect the spiritual essence in torturing 
the souls of the perversely wicked. 

If it be urged that the language of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures is explicit on the point, in the case of Dives, Catho- 
lic Christianity teaches us that every circumstance of a 
parable is not to be pressed to its strict meaning, and may 
be corrected by other teaching with which it does not 
accord. So that all the stress that is laid on " roasting" 
and " frizzing," etc., is not applicable to the idea of the 
punishment of " sense" in the region of the damned. 

But the main point of the argument contains a notable 
fallacy. Though the torments of the reprobate are in- 
conceivably great, it does not follow that we can, while in 
this mortal state, so realize the truth that it should neces- 
sarily check and " turn awry" the whole current of our 
ordinary lives. The Apostle tells us that " the sensual 
man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of 
God; for it is foolishness to him and he cannot under- 
stand" (1 Uor. 11. 14). "We see now through a glass in 
an obscure manner" (2 Cor. xiii. 12). Even when our 
Divine Lord was teaching His disciples, " They under- 
stood not the word, and it was hid from them, so that 
they perceived it not" (Luke ix. 45). 

It is only the Saints whose minds are elevated above 
the suggestions of sense, through fasting and mortifica- 
tion, and thus disposed to co-operate with the grace of God, 
and profit by its lights, and who devote all the energies of 
their souls " to perceive the things of God," that have so 
keen an insight into the spiritual world, that it moulds 
and fashions the thoughts, words, and actions of their 
daily lives. They, by constant self-command, have so 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



135 



curbed and restrained the natural tendency to mental dis- 
sipation and distraction, that they are more like angels 
than men, and are ever in the Divine presence, and thus, 
like St. Paul, see and know " hidden things" connected 
with the life to come, which it is not given to other men 
to understand. 

We read in the lives of the Solitaries, that some amongst 
them were so impressed with the visions, vouchsafed them 
of the future judgment and punishment, that they could 
not forget, even for a short time, the dread convictions 
which had impressed themselves on their minds. St. 
Jerome in his quiet cell at Bethlehem, living only for 
God, and working indefatigably with all his powerful 
mind and abundant learning, to promote His honor and 
glory, often imagined that he heard the fearful clang of 
the last trumpet summoning him to judgment. 

But these are very exceptional cases ; and it is there- 
fore a complete fallacy to infer that, because Faith does 
not constantly keep before us, in the midst of the distrac- 
tions and cares of life, even its tremendous truths — it is 
therefore only a sham belief or Faith of the lips only, and 
not of the heart. 

This answer applies perfectly to the matter before us — 
" Yes," will say those who catch a glimpse of the beauty 
of Catholic Christianity, " no doubt it is beautiful in its 
mysteries, and in the admirable connection of its doc- 
trines, and in the comfort and consolation afforded by its 
sacramental system. Beautiful beyond anything that 
can be conceived in its teaching concerning the Blessed 
Eucharist ; for what can raise man more above the things 
of earth, and fill him with Divine life more perfectly, 
than the conviction that he may, whenever he pleases, 
visit his Saviour, and commune with Him " as it were 



136 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



face to face/ 5 and be made one with. Him in the Holy 
Communion? Yes, all this is true — but it proves too 
much. It is too beautiful to accord with the lives of 
ordinary Catholics. They cannot possibly believe in these 
delighful and consoling doctrines ; for if they did, they 
should be Saints." " Why," continues the objector, "if 
I could believe this, I would already be raised above this 
earth — I would live and walk with God. Oh ! the bliss 
to fold Him, as it were in my embrace, to fall at His 
sacred feet, to feel with Thomas the place of the nails, to 
place my hand within the opened side, and feel the beat- 
ings of the Sacred Heart !" 

Those who might be disposed to reason thus, or to 
attach importance to imaginary feelings of this kind, 
would show at once that they have a poor knowledge of 
themselves, and a poorer knowledge still of human nature. 
There may be, in this weary world of temptation and 
trial, some few privileged souls, who thus live continually 
in the presence of our Saviour. They have schooled 
themselves by persevering habits of prayer and medita- 
tion, and above all of simple obedience and docility to 
prudent direction, to receive these higher gifts of God, 
vouchsafed to very few, of being caught up into ecstasies, 
in which every distraction from without is cut off by the 
physical insensibility to these impressions, and the whole 
soul is so fixed on God, as to forget for a while all its little 
cares, and conceits, and vanities. 

When I visited Bois d'Haine, and saw the girl Louise 
Lateau, and spoke with her, and marked her simplicity 
of character, and watched her, after I had given her the 
Holy Communion, fall into an ecstasy, I could understand, 
that one so good, and so sorely tried, who had made it 
from childhood the constant habit of her daily life, to 



AS SEEN" BY FAITH. 



137 



meditate as continually as possible on the Passion of our 
Lord, should, as she described her visions to me, see Him 
bending beneath the heavy cross, in the crowded streets 
of Jerusalem, and hear the shouts and yells of His tor- 
mentors. She told me that this was what she saw, when- 
ever she seemed dead to the perception of external ob- 
jects. " Do you see our Divine Lord ?" — " Yes." — " Does 
He appear ever to see you ? Do you catch His eye as 
He passes along?" — "No, never." 

It was not difficult to believe that a Catholic like this 
peasant-girl, who seemed to be leading a supernatural 
life, might, on receiving our Divine Lord in the Holy 
Communion, have enjoyed the exalted gift of feeling 
herself in the visible presence. But those who fancy that 
Catholics generally should enjoy these blissful visions, 
and feel all the interior comfort that ought to spring 
from a lively Faith, can know very little of the spiritual 
life and its experiences. They expect far too much, they 
imagine to themselves a state of mind and feeling that is 
altogether beyond the power of ordinary humanity. 

It is not anything of this kind we learn from the 
teaching of our Saviour. He, who, "for us men and 
our salvation," came down and dwelt amongst us, and 
shared our infirmities and sorrows, knows what is good 
for us. He has compassion on our miseries, for He 
shared them abundantly. He knows by this experience, 
which we can appreciate, how far we need comfort and 
support, and what may, through our vanity and self- 
love, be changed from real consolation into a temptation 
to spiritual pride. He is therefore sparing in the distri- 
bution of these higher gifts. 

What a world of meaning there is in that reproach ad- 
dressed by Him to the three Apostles in the garden of 



138 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



Gethsemani ! "What! could you not watch one hour 
with me ?" One hour! and that hour the very one when 
He needed, actually God as He was, needed human sym- 
pathy ! When He had put away the strong defences of 
His Divinity, and dismissed the Blessed Angels, who ever 
waited upon Him, and subjected Himself to the most 
overwhelming feelings that can sway the soul, and He 
was " sorrowful even unto death," and He knelt quite 
alone, with the blood gushing through the pores of His 
trembling body, and He had become " a worm and no 
man," had parted even with manly courage, and was 
thrown flat upon the ground by the irresistible force of 
blank fear and desolation, it was only then, under these 
extraordinary circumstances of supreme helplessness, that 
He said, as if grieved and disappointed, " Could you not 
watch one hour with me." He did not expect much in 
the way of comfort, who, once only in His life on earth, 
complained of the unkindness of His friends. On the 
cross, when His heart was breaking, a cry of similar com- 
plaint to His heavenly Father was wrung from Him by 
the intensity of His agony. Surely this example of 
patient endurance through a whole life, darkened through- 
out by the shadow of the cross, should teach us, whose 
lives must be made conformable to His, that we are not 
to expect in this world to enjoy the full consolations and 
the bright visions of Faith. 

Although the Church is a Divine institution, Divine 
in its Founder, Divine also in its Mysteries, and means 
of grace, it is a society of men, who are commissioned 
by Jesus Christ to carry out His work. Those who are 
called to be teachers and rulers in the Church, no doubt, 
receive special gifts, to enable them to discharge faith- 
fully their important functions. But they, like all God's 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



139 



intelligent creatures in this world of sin, bear the respon- 
sibilities of free-will. They may, or may not, make a 
proper use of the supernatural graces bestowed upon 
them. God will not force them to do what He earnestly 
desires. ~No more will He force those who form the 
main body of His Church. They may, or may not, make 
a proper use of their august privileges as Catholics. They 
may trifle with the gift of Faith, and expose it to irrepa- 
rable danger, by toying with liberalism and infidelity ; 
they may neglect the sacraments, and leave untouched 
the Bread of life. If they wilfully persevere in this 
course, a time will surely come when the gift of God will 
be taken away from them, and given to others more 
likely to profit by it. 

But God is patient and long-suffering, and it is consol- 
ing for Catholics to know, that there is no sin however 
grievous, that necessarily destroys and uproots Faith, 
save only that sin against the Holy Ghost, which con- 
sists in the wilful rejection of Faith itself. " It is impos- 
sible," as St. Paul says, "It is impossible for those who 
were once enlightened, have tasted also the heavenly 
gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have 
moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers 
of the world to come, and are fallen away, to be renewed 
again unto penance" (Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6). 

There is no priest, who has been many years on the 
Mission, who has not had personal experience of both 
these modes of dealing on the part of God with bad 
Catholics. It is wonderful how long Faith may survive 
a course of sin, and even scandalous sin. I have before 
my mind, now, striking instances of this mercy. I have 
known men who, plunged into grievous excesses, have 
for years despised warnings, and paid no attention to 



140 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



pressing exhortations, and yet, in some wonderful way 
they have clung to certain practices of their religion, and 
have said, even in the excess of their debaucheries, the 
prayers taught them by a good mother. Such as these, 
when it was least expected from them, have renounced 
sin effectually, turned to God with all their hearts, be- 
come real penitents, ever maintaining a deep sense of 
their wretched ingratitude to God, and have thus been 
preserved from even the temptation of self-justification. 

I have before my mind cases too, where there was no 
public sin or scandalous immorality, but only a yielding 
to the spirit of worldliness, followed sooner or later by 
a positive renunciation of the Faith, and I cannot re- 
member one case where Faith thus lost was ever recov- 
ered again. There have been instances in my experience 
where those unfortunate Catholics were brought to see the 
greatness of their loss, and the utter hollowness of the 
fashionable theories, which they had preferred to the 
teaching of the Church, and where there was real regret 
for this folly, and those who had erred, longed with 
all their hearts to win back the precious treasure they 
had lost. But, as far as human eyes could judge, they 
wept and sighed in vain. They could not believe again. 
" The things of God were foolishness to them and they 
could not understand." 

There is no more dangerous mistake on the part of 
converts to the true Church, than to imagine that they 
shall find perfection in Catholics, that every priest will 
be an Apostle, and every nun a St. Teresa. Through 
the gift of God, they see in a moment revealed to them, 
in all their lustrous beauty, the doctrines of the Church. 
After they have spent perhaps years in inquiring and 
reading, and satisfying doubts, and attempting to clear 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



141 



up difficulties, earnestly trying, by the best efforts of 
their intelligence, to grope their way to God through the 
midst of darkness, the light has suddenly burst upon 
them, as it did on St. Paul near Damascus. The scales 
of prejudice drop from their eyes, they drink in the les- 
sons of the Catholic religion, with an avidity that tells of 
their long hunger and thirst, and at once they seem to 
rise to the third heaven, in the joy and consolation 
afforded by the practices of the Faith. They cannot go 
to Holy Communion often enough ; they would wish to 
receive the Most Holy, twenty times a day, if it were 
possible, they are all aglow with the happy excitement of 
having found the rich treasure — " the pearl beyond all 
price." They desire to mount the rugged way to Heaven 
with giant strides, for, can they not " do all things," they 
say, " in Him who strengthens them" in the sacraments, 
and above all in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. 
And when they are counselled to be moderate, and sim- 
ple, and obedient, and told that God does not require 
extraordinary things, but that they should do well the 
little of which they are capable even with His helping 
grace, and to " watch and pray" and guard against self- 
confidence, they are chilled by such prudent counsel. 
Then after a time, they begin to look around them, and 
to notice that their fellow-Catholics do not share their 
ardor, that most of them are toiling slowly and steadily 
onward, often slipping and falling, and it may be settling 
down into sloth and tepidity. 

This excites their surprise, and their wonder is in- 
creased, when they discover that priests are not angels, 
but men " compassed about with infirmity" — sons of 
Adam, sons of sinners, who have their own sins to offer 
for, their own temptations to encounter ; that Religious 



142 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



too have their imperfections. When they see all this, 
they are apt to be distressed, and it may be disenchanted 
and disappointed with the Religion they have embraced, 
and tempted to believe that it is not in reality the beau- 
teous Heavenly thing they once thought it was. 

They were with these views, simply forgetting that 
the fairest works of God are always marred and spoiled 
by our imperfections : and that God Himself, respecting 
our free will, cannot give the brightness and purity of 
Heaven to what is only human after all. 

Our Divine Lord has prepared us for these disappoint- 
ments in the beautiful parables, in which He has de- 
scribed " the Kingdom of Heaven," or His Church on 
earth. In the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew, there is 
a series of these parables, and we have only to combine 
them, when we see at once how admirably they describe 
that strange mixture of good and evil, of piety and luke- 
warmness, of earnest zeal, and cold indifference, that 
marks the different members of the one true fold. This 
is so strikingly put by Cardinal Wiseman, in his essay on 
the " Parables of the New Testament," that my readers 
will, I am sure, thank me for giving an extract from that 
polished writer, and profound thinker. 

After speaking of the parable of the sower, as the pre- 
liminary or introductory parable of the whole series, in 
as much as it lays down the necessary dispositions for re- 
ceiving with profit the words of Christ, he goes on, — 
" The seed then sown by Christ in this field of the world, 
that portion of it even, which fell upon well-prepared 
ground, was soon to be disturbed by the enemy. A 
spurious seed would soon be scattered among it, and 
would spring up side by side with the blade of genuine 
grain ; that is, even in the Church itself, and among the 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



143 



faithful, there would arise corruption, vices, and scandals ; 
the parable of the cockle." 

So it must be with all things human. " There must 
be scandals ;" it would be folly to expect anything else. 
It is only the founders of false sects, whether deceived 
by fanaticism, or maliciously deceiving others, that have 
pretended to form a society where all would be perfect. 
No careful watching, no plucking up the weeds, will pre- 
serve the field of the Church from this mixture of good 
and bad : and so our Divine Lord who " fully understood 
what was in man," ordained that the separation was to be 
effected only when the time of the great harvest shall 
come. The sorting of the fish is to take place on the 
shore of eternity, when the angels of God, assisting in the 
great judgment, will be the sorters of good and bad. 
Wickliff e, and Huss, by declaring that sin put an end to 
all rights, aimed at a society of the immaculate. 

Every heresy is tainted with the same foolish notion of 
a perfect community. It was the grand characteristic of 
Donatism. " The basis of that heresy and schism," says 
Cardinal Wiseman, "was that the Church could only 
consist of incorrupt members, and that every portion of 
it which tolerated or forgave those guilty of a grievous 
crime, had forfeited its claims. Protestantism is essenti- 
ally Donatist, whether in its High-Church theory of 
branch separation from the trunk, or in its lowest evan- 
gelical idea of an invisible elect Church." 

Hence those who admire Catholic Christianity, as all 
must admire it who once discover it clear of the mists and 
shadows of prejudice, and distinct from the misrepresen- 
tations of its enemies, should understand, that this beauty, 
and grace, and supernatural and divinely conceived har- 
mony and order, is only the ideal before the mind of the 



144 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



Saviour. He manifested this truly Divine conception 
when, on the night before He suffered, He prayed that 
all who believed in Him might be made so perfect in 
unity and love, that the world would be converted at the 
charming spectacle. In that prayer, our Divine Lord ex- 
hibits to us His fond desire, and shows us what He would 
actually accomplish, if we would only freely give Him 
our hearts, and suffer Him to mould them as He willed. 
The reality is very different from the ideal ; human in- 
firmity, human weakness, imperfections, even among the 
just, continual falling away from fervor, not to speak of 
scandals of a grave kind, are ever soiling and disfiguring 
the glorious work of God. 

This view of the Church as it really is, a society of 
men, believing all, as if with one mind, the same myster- 
ies, confessing, as if with one mouth, the same doctrine, 
partaking of the same sacraments, nourished by the one 
saving Bread of life, bound together under the one visi- 
ble head, the Vicar and Representative of Christ ; yet all 
differing in degrees of piety or wickedness, a heterogene- 
ous collection well figured by the " crowd of bad and 
good gathered to the wedding feast" (Matt. xxii. 10) 
explains away at once the difficulties urged against the 
sanctity of the Catholic Church. 

" Can she," it is argued, " be a Holy Church, where 
there is so much immorality, where there are so many 
scandals, where, even amongst those who ought to be 
patterns of every virtue, there is so much weakness ? 
Can we call that Church a holy and perfect Church, 
where even the very head and representative of Christ 
has been, as in the case of some Popes, a notorious sinner ?" 

Yes ; I reply she can be Holy, perfectly Holy in her 
teaching, Holy in her sacraments, Holy in everything 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



145 



that can help to make men saints ; and yet exhibit all 
these blemishes, because she is composed of men, who 
may resist grace, and profane sacraments, and do what- 
ever their evil nature suggests, and they are determined 
to carry out. Admitting even for a moment the grossly 
exaggerated stories of immorality in her rulers, one 
answer to all this is readily found in the fact, that, even 
amongst the chosen twelve, there was one who sinned so 
grievously, that our Divine Lord said of him, " it were 
better for him that he had never been born." Further, 
as to the objection that there were bad Popes, I reply 
that, even if this were established as a fact by historians 
above suspicion, it would not affect the sanctity of the 
Church, as regards her holy teaching, and the means of 
grace ; it would only prove that, in spite of the weakness 
of human nature, the glorious work of the Son of God 
would produce, in men of good-will, the sanctifying 
effects intended by its Divine Founder. The Scribes and 
Pharisees, though they were " whited sepulchres," were 
approved, in their office of teaching the people, by our 
Divine Lord : " All things whatsoever they shall say to 
you, observe and do " (Matt, xxiii. 3). Neither they who 
sat a in the chair of Moses" nor those who were, by Di- 
vine appointment of the Saviour, to fulfil the work com- 
mitted specially to St. Peter, of " confirming the faith," 
were guaranteed, by any promise, from personal weak- 
ness or actual sin. They might therefore sin, and sin 
grievously, yet the Faithful should obey their commands, 
and observe their doctrine. 

I do not deny that grave charges of ambition and im- 
morality have been made by many Protestant writers, 
and even Catholic historians of the Gallican school, 
against some of the successors of St. Peter ; but there is 



146 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



no doubt that these charges rest on weak foundation, and 
that they have been grossly exaggerated by the enemies 
of the Holy See. Much of this accumulated rubbish is 
fast disappearing from the pages of genuine history. 
The disinterested labors of learned men, superior to vul- 
gar prejudice, such as Frederic Hurter, Professor Yoight, 
Doctor Hock, Roscoe, and I might acid the writings of 
Leopold Ranke, are establishing more and more clearly 
and satisfactorily, the truth of the words of a celebrated 
writer — that " History," especially in all that relates to 
the Catholic Church, is a a vast conspiracy against truth." 

But even admitting that, amongst the 260 Popes, there 
were a few whose lives were tainted by "the pride of 
life" and even immorality, what would follow ? Should 
we then believe that the solemn promises of the Divine 
Founder of the Church had been made void ? No, this 
could never be. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
His words shall not pass away" (Mark xiii. 31). This 
only could be reasonably deduced from such scandals — a 
truth not understood perhaps when our Divine Lord de- 
scribed His Kingdom on earth in the parables, that this 
Kingdom, the Church, was constituted, as well in its 
teaching body as in all its members, of weak human ele- 
ments, and should consequently exhibit more or less, even 
in those in the highest position, the taint of their personal 
weakness and infirmity. There was no promise — there 
could be none consistent with free-will, that engaged our 
Lord, from the beginning to the end of His work, to pro- 
vide sinless successors to His first Yicar on earth. The 
promise of supernatural aid was to secure " the Faith 
once delivered to the saints" from corruption. Men who 
occupied the chair of Peter, and became by their office 
the " mouthpiece" of the Spirit of Truth, might fall into 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



147 



sin, but, " for the sake of the elect," they would still be 
guided in the ways of sound doctrine, as were Caiphas 
and the exponents of prophecy and the law in the Jewish 
Church, and would not be allowed to lead the flock into 
the noxious and poisonous pastures of heresy and im- 
morality. 

How beautifully is not this truth expressed by the 
Apostle ! " God who commanded the light to shine out 
oi darkness, He hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Christ Jesus : but we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, 
that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not 
of us' 5 (2. Cor. iv. 6, 7). How stupidly Protestants mix 
up together inerrancy of teaching and impeccability of 
life! They will not believe it possible that Holy and 
sound doctrine can come to men through the lips of weak 
and sinful mortals; as if our Divine Lord had made 
angels and not men the ministers of His gospel. 

There is another view of the subject which forces itself 
upon me here. ]N~on-Catholics will not believe that 
Priests and nuns can be faithful to the grace of their 
vocation, because they look only to the weakly earthen 
vessel. They know very clearly how weak human nature 
is in their own persons, how prone to evil, how easily 
overcome ; but they seem not to recognize the power of 
supernatural grace. As Cardinal Newman expresses it, 
"Men of the world know the power of nature; they 
know not, experience not, believe not the power of God's 
grace ; and since they are not themselves acquainted with 
any power that can overcome nature, they think that 
none exists, and therefore, consistently, they believe that 
every one, Priest or not, remains to the end such as nature 
made him, and they will not believe it possible that any 



148 A GLIMPSE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



one can lead a supernatural life. And when they hear 
of the life which a Priest must lead by his profession 
from youth to age, they will not credit what he professes 
to be. They know nothing of the presence of God, the 
merits of Christ, the intercession of the Blessed Yirgin ; 
the virtue of recurring prayers, of frequent confession, 
of daily Masses ; they are strangers to the transforming 
power of the Most Holy Sacrament, the Bread of Angels; 
they do not contemplate the efficacy of salutary rules, of 
holy companions, of long enduring habit, of ready spon- 
taneous vigilance, of abhorrence of sin and indignation 
at the tempter, to secure the soul from evil." 

If those who rant and rave against the Holiness of the 
Church could catch only a glimpse of the interior life of 
a good priest, or a fervent Religious, what a marvel that 
would be to them ! How completely would their ideas 
be changed ! The daily meditation, the examination of 
conscience, the constant thought of the presence of God, 
the pious ejaculations, the frequent lifting up of the heart 
to God, all this carried on in the busy thoroughfares of 
life, unrevealed exteriorly by a look or any outward sign, 
would seem to them almost incredible. If it were given 
them, like the servants of the prophet, to have their eyes 
opened, so that they could see the angels of God ascend- 
ing and descending, to mark the bright gleam of happi- 
ness on the face of the guardian spirit, so proud of the 
purity of his charge, and the flashes of beauteous light 
from Heaven, as grace after grace and blessing after 
blessing descends on the soul of God's faithful servant, 
then would they behold with admiration what is meant 
by the supernatural life in Catholic Christianity, and what 
a blissful thing it is to walk with God in this world, and 



AS SEEN BY FAITH. 



149 



to minister to Him in the spiritual and corporal necessi- 
ties of His children. 

This is no imaginary sketch, it must be something like 
the reality of a Holy life in " the city of God " on earth. 
And, if the stranger to our creed went farther, and pur- 
sued the same train of thought and vision, as regards the 
service at the Altar — surely it would not require any 
efforts to realize to his mind that blissful sight described 
by St. John Chrysostom, when he tells us, that, as he 
performed the sacred rites, he saw the angels around him, 
bowing down and worshipping " the lamb that was slain 
from the beginning of the world," and supplementing by 
their ardent fervor the coldness and insensibility which 
must ever accompany even the best efforts of the soul, 
while it is enclosed in the prison of the body, to rise to 
the perception of things supernatural 

In the next chapter, I mean to summarize the view of 
the Holy Catholic Church, as it appears to the eyes of 
enlightened Faith. It will then be seen more clearly 
what is this creation of God on earth, that is assailed so 
fiercely by the arms of Christian error, and daring infi- 
delity, and how widely different is Catholic Christianity, 
from the miserably distorted object which is held up by 
its enemies to the ridicule, and scorn, and hatred of an 
unbelieving world. 



150 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTEE VII. 

A Further View of Catholic Christianity Through 
its Forms of Worship. 

AGrRE AT deal has been written to show how prefer- 
able is the simplicity of Protestant worship, to the 
gorgeous ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church. 
Very learned men, who probably were so full of this 
notion of the fitness of simple prayer, that they never 
troubled themselves to study the symbolic character of 
our ceremonies, have denounced them as unmeaning 
" mummery." In their view, the solemn, and stately, and 
well emphasized reading of approved prayers, and the 
chanting of popular hymns, and antiphons, and the pol- 
ished essay on some moral subject, are immeasurably 
superior to a grand High Mass, with a full choral service, 
embellished by strains of the highest artistic music, and 
an eloquent exposition by the preacher of some great 
mystery of Revealed Religion with its practical conse- 
quences, and a touching exhortation to generous resolu- 
tions. 

Putting aside for a moment the all-important consider- 
ation, what does the Almighty prefer, as far as we can 
know of His good pleasure, let us view the disputed 
point in its purely human aspects. 

I believe that any one who takes into consideration the 
wants and infirmities of our nature, and shuts out from 
his view the suggestions of prejudice, must admit that a 
due attention to outward ceremonial is a wonderful help 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 



151 



to fix the wandering thoughts, and confine the attention 
of the worshippers to the main object before them. 

In estimating the matter, we must take it in its extreme 
forms, and judge between the most rigid simplicity, and 
the most elaborate ceremonial. Suppose we contrast a 
man, wearing the ordinary dress of the world, reading, 
from a platform or stool, a chapter of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, without any effort at elocution, beyond bringing 
out distinctly the words of the sacred text ; and this in a 
plain building, void of anything like religious ornamenta- 
tion, merely contrived in its architectural proportions to 
assist the reader's voice, and that when he does read, he 
discourses plainly on some text, and that when he has 
finished his homily, the congregation, without help of 
organ or any instrument, join in an ordinary hymn ; sup- 
pose, I say, we contrast this simplest form of Christian 
worship with the Ceremonial of High Mass in a grand 
Cathedral, there can scarcely be a doubt which will be 
more likely to impress the ordinary public. 

Take a congregation consisting in the main of the poor 
and the uneducated, those in a word to whom it was our 
Divine Lord's greatest consolation that they had the 
gospel preached to them, and can it be maintained, that 
they will be equally impressed in both cases ? Of course 
I am supposing that the natural emotions have not been 
schooled by puritanical training, and that those who are 
present are left entirely to their own unbiased feelings. 
I believe that no intelligent and honest man will have a 
doubt on the point. " It is only quite natural," he will 
say, " that the grand music and the pealing of the organ, 
and the rich vestments of the officiating priests, and the 
clouds of incense, and the clash of arms of the military 
present, and the bowing down of the whole assemblage 



152 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

at the more solemn parts of the ceremony, will produce a 
soul-subduing effect ; and that this effect will be consider- 
ably heightened by the lofty nave and aisles, and the 
lights, and flowers, and decorations of the majestic build- 
ing." " The meeting-house" or the " Tabernacle" may 
be as large as the temple in Salt Lake City, and its fit- 
tings all that is considered perfect in the way of utility 
and comfort, the acoustic principles duly attended to, 
and the ventilation carried out on the highest scientific 
principles, and the pews padded like first-class railway 
carriages, but the walls bare and bald of any decoration, 
no pictures on their broad expansive waste — no stained- 
glass windows, nothing, in a word, to appeal through 
sense to soul, what will be the natural effect of this 
simplicity ? Alas ! for the religious feeling or devout 
attention of those who are not over interested in the 
commentaries, and disquisitions, and numerous points of 
the learned preacher. It is not in human nature, that 
the many, unable to follow the discourse through its 
many mazes and subtle windings, should not yield to a 
thousand distracting thoughts. They will certainly 
grow weary of the solemn tones, and mope ; and if they 
dare not look about, and converse with their neighbors, 
will in all probability slumber peacefully in the well- 
stuffed pews. 

I know very well that, at one period, when prejudice 
and bigotry, the offspring of gross misrepresentation, 
had excited in the ignorant masses, a hatred of Popery, 
and it was considered a godly work to mutilate and 
destroy the costly treasures of art, with which ages of 
Faith had enriched the splendid Cathedrals of England 
and Scotland, that the barns and " pantile" structures 
were the cherished conventicles of the men who preached 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 153 



and sang and prayed aloud in the extempore style and 
with the nasal twang immortalized by Scott. But these 
days have happily passed away. 

When I visited, a few years ago, St. Mungo's Cathedral 
in Glasgow, recently enriched, even in its crypts, with 
stained windows that are marvels of art, and saw just 
opposite the frowning figure of John Knox, who seems, 
in his bronze lineaments, to denounce this hateful restora- 
tion, I felt that a change had come over the spirit of this 
dream of Puritanism; and that sensible men were forced 
nowadays, in spite of long-cherished traditions, to pay 
public homage to the genius of Catholic Christianity. 

It is only in congregations of ultra-puritans, on the 
borders of civilization, such as the " Doppers" of the Dutch 
Church on our remote frontiers, where men and women 
drawl out the psalms, as they did one hundred years ago, 
and are sustained in their noisy fervor by the energy of 
fiery Predikants, that people object to organs and the 
other adjuncts of solemn worship. Any one may see, 
from the style of ecclesiastical architecture adopted within 
the last generation in the colony, and the tendency of 
Christians of all denominations to decorate their churches 
and chapels, that there is really something after all in 
the good old Catholic notion, that the soul, in all that 
concerns the fitting worship of the Almighty, must be 
reached through sense. 

Kitualism has not yet fully developed itself amongst 
us, in orderly ceremonial and elaborate choral services, 
with vestments and lights and incense ; but an ordinary 
observer may perceive on all sides enough to satisfy him, 
that I am not arguing on any but sound principles, and 
the promptings of our best instincts, when I say that, 
apart altogether from the will and good pleasure of God, 



154 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



made known to ns in Revelation, and viewing the matter 
only in its human aspects, the simplicity, as it is called, 
of un-Catholic worship is a mere pretence, invented in 
past days to excite and sustain odium against the practices 
of the Catholic Church. 

But if we rise above the question of mere taste and 
right feeling, and ask ourselves what is the will of God as 
to our mode of worship, it will appear certain beyond 
doubt, that the same God, who instructed His chosen 
people under the old covenant in all the details of solemn 
worship, did also, in the person of Christ, instruct the 
Apostles, that these outward forms should be preserved 
by believers in their teaching. External ceremonies and 
outward forms of Religious service, suited to our wants 
and capacities, arise naturally from the Incarnation, and 
the w r hole sacramental system. 

If we ask ourselves what was actually the mode of 
worship in the earliest Christian times, we find, in the 
old Liturgies, a direct and clear answer to the question. 
We do not know from the Sacred Scriptures, what were 
the special instructions of our Divine Lord on this point, 
but He who was so careful that every tittle and iota of 
the Mosaical dispensation should, as long as that dispen- 
sation was in force, be strictly complied with, must, 
while " giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the 
Apostles whom He had chosen" (Acts i. 2), have fully 
explained to them His wishes on this important matter. 
" There are many other things," St. John tells us, which 
Our Saviour said and did " which are not written" (John 
xx. 31). 

The practice of the Church, when she was free to act 
in the matter of building churches, and arranging her 
ceremonial, brings out what these instructions were. 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 155 



From the time when Persecution ceased, and the Basilicas 
and other public buildings were handed over by the Im- 
perial Government for Christian Worship, we know, from 
the records carefully preserved in all the churches, what 
this worship was. In the cities and towns remote from 
the great centres of persecution, there were, we may con- 
lid en tly believe, even in Apostolic times, solemn forms 
of external worship. Most commentators on the Apoca- 
lypse hold, that the vision of the golden candlesticks, and 
the altar with "the Lamb as it were slain" resting upon 
it, and the golden censer with its fire and smoking in- 
cense, and the assembled priests with the Venerable 
Pontiff presiding, seated on his throne, and the hymns 
and canticles, and the harps and musical instruments, was 
clothed in imagery borrowed from the ceremonial of the 
Church as it existed in his time, and that St. John made 
use of this imagery, so familiar to the Faithful, in order 
to help them to form an idea of the honor and adoration 
paid to our Divine Lord, by the Saints and Angels, in the 
sanctuary of Heaven. 

A Protestant writer, Bingham says, in reference to 
these passages from the Apocalypse, "We have here 
seen the model of the worship of Christ as begun and 
settled in the practice of the Church in the first ages, and 
we shall find it continued in the same manner in those 
that followed immediately after" (Bingham, Origines 
Ecclesiastic®, book xiii. ch. ii.). The learned Dr. Rock 
says on this point, " Such a remarkable resemblance exists 
between the more conspicuous outlines of this mysterious 
representation, drawn in so graphic a manner by the 
luminous pencil of the Evangelist, and those sketches of 
the celebration of the Eucharistic mysteries, incidentally 
pictured by the earlier Fathers in their letters and other 



156 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

writings, and even by Pagans in their remarks upon the 
ways and habits and practices of the Christians around 
them, or traced, with studious and minute accuracy, in 
the Liturgies of each particular church, that we are com- 
pelled to refer them to one original, from which they 
have all been copied with but very little and unimportant 
variation" (Hierurgia, p. 91). 

It may have been that the Liturgy of the Holy Sacri- 
fice, or the Mass, was modelled according to the Yision 
of St. John, the favorite disciple of our Divine Lord. 
In either case, as Dr. Rock remarks, the Liturgy or Mass 
bears deeply impressed upon it the type of Apostolical 
institution. 

But it is in the cradle of our Christian Faith, in the 
Catacombs, that we find the most striking proofs that the 
Catholic mode of worship of the present day is most in- 
timately connected with the worship of the early Chris- 
tians. It is proved beyond all doubt by the eminent 
archaeologists, who have made the careful examination, 
and minute description of these subterranean retreats, 
the study and work of their lives, that the Catacombs, 
early in the second century, were used by the persecuted 
Christians, not only, as hiding-places and for the purpose 
of burial ; but also for their assemblies, and for their 
united devotions and sacred rites. Guided by such lights 
as Boldetti, Bottari, Bosio, Aringhi, and D'Agincourt, 
and prepared by a careful study of the annals of early 
Ecclesiastical History, the visitor, who in these days de- 
scends, torch in hand, into this city of the dead, will at 
once discover unmistakable traces of the Altar at which 
the Holy Mass was celebrated eighteen hundred years 
ago. Aided by the emblems, and decorations, and fres- 
cos, on the walls of the little chambers, he can easily 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 157 



picture to himself, where stood the sacrificing priest, 
where knelt the pious crowd, and fancy he hears again 
the hymns, and alleluias, and strains of holy gladness, 
pealing through the vaults and passages. 

How silly it is for men, in the face of evidence like 
this, to declare that the earliest worship was like that 
of the Puritans of the days of Cromwell! We see in 
the frescos of the Catacombs, pictures as old as those 
found in the ruins of Pompeii, overwhelmed a.d. 79 
(our own Flaxman corroborates on this point the judg- 
ment of D'Agincourt), the very vestments of the priests, 
and enough to trace out distinctly the whole ceremonial 
of public worship. 

"With what different eyes would not those who scoff 
at the Mass, and the dress of the priests, and the 
lighted candles, and the bowings and bendings of the 
knee, regard these things, if they were convinced, that 
the sacred rite is the very same, in all its prominent 
features and essential parts, as that celebrated in the 
Catacombs according to the form prescribed in the 
ancient Liturgies ! 

But, as I have said already, this is a flippant and 
irreverent age. Faith in the august mysteries of Revela- 
tion is almost gone from those who will not hear the 
Church. There is no time to study the large tomes of 
learned archaeologists, or the early annals of Christianity, 
or to inquire into the meaning of the rites and cere- 
monies, carefully transmitted through so many centuries; 
and therefore they are regarded by the many as trifling 
and contemptible. 

" Why," says the sharp colonial youth, " should candles 
be lighted in the daytime ? they are of no use when the 
sun is shining. Why should the priest stand with his 



158 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



back to the people, reading Latin which no one under- 
stands ? What a singular way of preaching ! Why not 
dress like other men ? Why hold his hands extended ? 
Was ever anything more absurd !" 

But the priest is not preaching, he is performing a 
most solemn act of worship peculiar to the priestly office : 
and his people know well how to follow him, by their 
prayer-books through every part of the sacred rite. See 
how even those who cannot read are perfectly united 
with the rest of the congregation in every movement. 
They all, as one man, rise or bend the knee, or bow down 
in deep reverence ; and these lighted candles, and all the 
ornaments of the altar, and vestments, have a symbolical 
meaning which speaks to the mind and heart of the 
initiated, who have been trained from infancy to under- 
stand every portion of the service. These are sacred 
things in their eyes who are properly instructed, honored 
in the glowing Faith of millions of saints, and venerated 
for ages by united Christendom. 

There is something so preposterous and revolting to a 
Catholic in this ignorant association of utilitarian and 
business-like notions with the things of Faith, that he can 
with difficulty restrain his feelings of indignation, when 
they are rudely thrust on his attention by those who have 
never taken the pains to understand what they are so 
glibly talking about. It is not surprising that the well- 
instructed Catholic under these circumstances is tempted 
to believe, that these expressions of contempt and ridi- 
cule can have their origin only in horrible blasphemy, 
and supercilious scorn for the ordinances of God. 

But in truth there is no thought of anything of the 
kind. They who speak so lightly or contemptuously of 
what we regard as most holy, are only expressing their 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 159 

matter-of-fact opinions about things which are meaning- 
less to them. When they talk freely about the rites and 
ceremonies of Catholic worship, they are only expressing 
honest convictions, which have never been disturbed by 
even the ghosts and shadows of ecclesiastical learning, or 
the teaching of the Church. They know nothing about 
" the ages of Faith," and the grand thoughts that once 
formed the spiritual life of united Christendom. 

I have often met with young people of this sort — who, 
I am sure had not the least idea of giving offence, by 
expressing freely to those about them their views on the 
silly and puerile and senseless things which they firmly 
believed they had noticed in Catholic worship. Poor 
deluded Papists ! they must have sincerely thought, " what 
has bewitched you," that you cannot look at these things 
with the light of common-sense, and see through the 
foolery of all this playing at Religion ! 

How painful it must be to the really thoughtful and 
learned, who have travelled in many lands, and have, 
though not Catholics, picked up some information about 
the old religion, as they hear the dogmatic opinions about 
this religion freely ventilated, in train and cart, by young 
people, the amount of whose theology about the Roman 
Catholic belief might be summed up in the phrase — " the 
Pope is the man of sin and the Church he governs the 
beast of the Apocalypse." I am never disposed to be 
angry under these circumstances, and I know it would be 
rude to laugh, but one cannot help thinking that if there 
is one position, that makes an intelligent-looking indi- 
vidual more ridiculous than another, it is talking confi- 
dently, before those who are fairly educated, about things 
of which they know absolutely nothing. The notions of 
a raw Kaffir about the locomotive and the telegraph would 



160 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

be positively refreshing, compared with this barbaric 
" rushing in where Angels fear to tread." 

If one could only reason with them, and explain what 
Catholicity really is — there would be some gratification ; 
but alas ! these minds are so full of the one idea on the 
matter, that they have no place for any other. Tell 
them, that the most gifted children of art devoted the 
best efforts of their almost inspired genius to adorn this 
worship so much despised by those who do not understand 
it ; that painters, and sculptors, and musicians, devoted 
their whole lives to add one gem to the many that adorn 
the brow of the spouse of Christ, and they will look blank 
with amazement, and laugh outright at the folly, which 
could have suggested so stupid a waste of valuable time, 
and so profitless an expenditure of talents, that might 
have secured wealth and honor for their possessors. 
Describe to them a grand old Cathedral — or try to give 
them a notion of St. Peter's with its priceless treasures of 
art, and tell them that all this grandeur and prodigality 
of rich ornament in its glowing groups of statuary, and 
unfading mosaics, was simply to construct a temple 
worthy, as men could make it, of " the dwelling-place" of 
God Incarnate, and they will regard you as one who is 
an idle dreamer, and destitute of an atom of business 
capacity. 

But who can blame them ? they have heard over and 
over again that Popery is " a vain delusion," at its best — 
until this notion has become a settled conviction in their 
minds. It is no wonder therefore that they pity or 
despise the victims of this strange delusion ; and judge of 
the extravagant folly to which it leads, as they would the 
vagaries of an idle and thriftless prodigal. They are not 
guilty of the sin of the unfortunate Apostle, who com- 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 161 

plained of the waste of the precious unguent, which 
Magdalene poured out on the sacred feet of oar Lord ; 
for he was covetous, and tried to veil his avarice under 
the hypocrisy of caring for the poor. No — these young 
people, who are ever asking, — what is the good of this 
or that in some beautiful Catholic Church, and pointing 
out how money might have been saved here and there, 
and are thoroughly utilitarian in their views, they are not 
hypocrites, nor are they misers. They are honest and 
outspoken, kind-hearted it may be, generous and amiable, 
and they make themselves ridiculous to Catholics, or 
scandalize them by their remarks on ceremonial religion, 
and works of art connected with the Divine service, only 
because they know absolutely nothing of a religion that 
is supernatural in its teaching, and in everything that 
pertains to the worship and honor of the great God. 

We Catholics should be patient when our religious 
rites and ceremonies are as we think, rudely and irre- 
verently criticised. Those who speak in this manner 
know not what they say. No harm probably is meant 
by them, even when they smile broadly and stare about 
them in our churches, and disturb those kneeling near, 
by their unseemly remarks. There is of course manifest 
in this conduct a want of good-breeding and ordinary 
politeness. But the whole ceremony and all its acces- 
sories is utter foolishness to them, they do not under- 
stand anything about it, and they do not even allow 
themselves to think that there may or can be anything 
worth knowing, underneath all that seems to them so 
childish and unmeaning. 

If Catholics were always as devout as they should be 
in " the House of God," there would be much less of 
this seeming irreverence on the part of strangers. If, at 



162 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



the Holy Sacrifice, or Benediction, they tried to rise to 
the perceptions of Faith, when the Immaculate Victim 
is lifted up for their adoration, and to bow down with 
grateful homage to receive the blessing of the Emmanuel, 
non-Catholics, who visit our churches, would soon learn 
respect and reverence for our worship, and be led to 
inquire into the meaning of those rites which seem to 
them at first sight so strange and incomprehensible. 

Let me suppose for a moment that, struck by the 
serious and rapt attention of the worshippers, and the 
sort of instinct which seems to guide even children 
through the solemn services, they were led to ask what 
does it all mean ? and some friend were to offer them a 
prayer-book, and point out to them the different parts 
of the sacred ceremony, it would not be long until the 
thought would flash across their minds, that something, 
which they had never comprehended before, was taking 
place under their eyes. " What," they might be led to 
say to themselves, " if it be true that, under these out- 
ward rites, which we have been always taught to regard 
as senseless mummeries, there is enacted an awful mys- 
tery, and that God the Saviour is really present, veiled 
under the whiteness of the Host ?" I can easily imagine 
the shame and regret which would overwhelm them for 
their irreverence. 

Thousands are every day wakening up to this correct 
view of Catholic worship. They enter a Catholic church 
with much the same feeling of idle curiosity as would lead 
them to a theatre. They thank God perhaps that they 
are not like the superstitious crowd, who, at the signal of 
the bell, bow down and strike their breasts ; and they 
smile at the spectacle of apparent fervor, and freely ex- 
change with their companions their jests and mockery at 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 163 

every movement of the priest and congregation. But 
gradually as they note the unmistakable earnestness, and 
the ease with which all join in the forms of worship, and 
see that the indications of their superior wisdom are un- 
heeded, and that sometimes their rude stare is met with a 
glance of pity, they begin to wonder what it is that can 
produce this reverent attention ; and an impression is 
often made that is never forgotten, and which, if not 
chased away by frivolity and silly talk, is sure to lead to 
sincere and earnest inquiry. When the congregation 
manifests an edifying attention, and seems to realize the 
grand and awful nature of the Holy Sacrifice, it will be 
the means of effecting many a real conversion. 

"Worldly-minded people will of course account for all 
this in their own way. They will say, " Yes, no doubt 
the Eomish rite is attractive, because it is purposely con- 
trived to work on the senses." And they are right so 
far : it is attractive, and it does reach the soul through 
sense, and it has been so arranged from the very begin- 
ning, but only that it may raise the soul above the things 
of earth, and bring it into pure and sweet communion 
with the Spirit of God. It is meant precisely to do all 
this, and when not resisted by unreasoning pride and the 
force of prejudice, will always be a wonderful help to 
bring the well-disposed to a knowledge of the truth. 

Men who have a contempt for Faith, as it is under^ 
stood in Catholic Christianity, are always sneering at the 
credulity and superstition of Catholics. " Papists," they 
say, " will believe anything no matter how absurd." 

I reply, Catholics will believe everything that is re- 
vealed by God, and taught by His Infallible Church, 
no matter how incomprehensible it may seem ; and it is 
chiefly to awaken Faith, and to strengthen and develop 



164 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

it, by the aid of the senses, that there is all this pomp 
and ceremony in Catholic worship. Once this is clearly 
understood by strangers, and the frozen barrier of pre- 
judice which chills anything like the ardor of true de- 
votion, is broken through, a glimpse is then caught of 
the bright and Heavenly beauty beyond. Clouds and 
mists depart, and the thirsting soul is borne onward on 
the wings of desire to the fountain of living water, 
springing up, in the bosom of the Church, to life eternal. 

There will of course be many difficulties, and trials, 
and obstacles, in the way, but they will melt into nothing 
before the ever-kindling light of eternal truth. Old 
thoughts will attempt to resume their influence, and turn 
from his course the honest inquirer. "This is the 
Church," he will say to himself, " that I was so long 
taught to hate as the mystery of abomination ; this is the 
idolatrous, soul-enslaving enemy of Christ; this is the 
superstitious creed which debased and degraded the in- 
tellect for so many ages." These were once formidable 
objections, preventing him from looking in the direction 
of the Catholic Church ; but now, that the possibility of 
the truth of Catholic doctrine, and the real nature of 
Catholic worship has flashed upon his mind, there arises 
simultaneously a suspicion that what he had so often 
heard, without question, may be altogether false. These 
ugly names and these solemn denunciations of Popery in 
every shape and form may after all, he begins to think, 
have been the offspring of interested zeal, and misrepre- 
sentation, and calumny. Better thoughts will follow in 
this struggle after truth. "If God has spoken to the 
Church, and revealed certain truths about His own nature, 
and the economy of salvation, these truths being beyond 
the reach of human perception, must be mysteries. Al- 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 165 



though I cannot comprehend them, I am bound, out of 
respect to God and to the infallible teacher appointed by 
Him to instruct me, to accept them reverently. There 
can be no degradation of the intellect in believing what 
we know with certainty to have been taught by Divine 
Truth itself. 

"If Christians for so many ages agreed in adoring 
Christ really present in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in 
the Eucharist, and if the same belief was cherished by 
the Faithful in the very infancy of the Church, there can 
be no idolatry in adoring the Lord and Saviour present 
in this manner. The early Christians were taught by the 
Apostles themselves and by their immediate successors, and 
must have worshipped in a way that they knew was pleas- 
ing to their Divine Master. Surely they loved Him with 
all their hearts, who responded to the appeal of an 
Apostle with tears and lamentations, vehemently declar- 
ing that the Pagans might wring out their life-blood 
rather than force them to deny Christ. He must have 
loved them in return. He could not have been displeased 
with them, because they clung to the belief in His pro- 
mise of being always with them, and testifying the reality 
and earnestness of their confidence in His Word, by their 
expressive worship. Nay He must have blessed them, 
as they clustered round the altars in the Catacombs, es- 
teeming it their greatest happiness in the midst of cruel 
persecution for His name's sake, that they could partake 
of His Body and Blood and be made one with Him in the 
great sacrament. And if so, He must be blessing, with 
His choicest benedictions, those Catholics, who, in the 
face of the ridicule and scorn of an unbelieving world, 
cling to this old Faith, and honor His presence in their 
midst by an outward worship as old, in its peculiar form 



166 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



and ceremonial, as that clearly indicated in the earliest 
Christian monuments and the venerable Liturgies. If 
Catholics are wrong, it can only be, because they cherish 
notions too exalted of the Infinite power, and the Infinite 
mercy, and the Infinite loving condescension of God our 
Saviour. And, awful thought ! if I am wrong in prefer- 
ring the views and opinions of those who rebelled against 
the Old Church, and taught me to deride and blaspheme 
this mystery of Divine love, whither shall I fly from 
His wrath and where shall I hide my shame ?" 

This is the natural flow of thought that brings many 
into the bosom of the Church, who have been interested 
in inquiring into the meaning of her ceremonial, and in 
watching its effects on the souls of earnest believers. 
Thus it is that one ray of light, emanating from the 
sanctuary — is sufficient to indicate to a man who honestly 
desires to find out the truth, the hideous deformity of 
those spectres of the imagination, that rise up before 
him from the rank soil of long-accumulated prejudices. 

It does not require much study or instruction to com- 
plete the conversion of any one, whom God in mercy 
has allowed to be seriously struck with the profound 
meaning of the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. He 
has got the key which unlocks the treasure committed to 
her keeping. He sees, by a sort of intuition, that the 
bowing and repeated genuflections, and the incense, and 
lights, and the rich ornaments, are all directed to one 
object, to show respect to the Saviour really present. 
The very peculiarity of the rite, so unlike anything in- 
vented and authorized by worldly fashions, and the 
changing caprice of men, commends it to his admiration. 

It is, he sees, the time-honored ceremonial to be ob- 
served by His ministers and attendants in the presence of 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 



167 



the Great King. As the Master of Ceremonies, and the 
Lord Chamberlain, in attendance on an earthly sovereign, 
direct all the minutije of the dress and movements of the 
privileged few, who pass in procession before the throne, 
orwait°on Majesty; so, at the High Mass, there is the 
proper officer, to see that the Sacred Eitnal, handed down 
from primitive times, is carefully observed. " And this 
then," he says, "is the clean oblation foretold by the 
last of the prophets; Christ, the priest forever according 
to the order of Melchisedech, is here at once priest and 
victim, and by the hands of the visible priest officiating 
at the Altar, is offering Himself to His Heavenly Father, 
to apply to the sonls of the worshippers, the fruits of His 
Eedemption." What a vision of marvellous beauty rises 
up before the mind of one thus initiated into the mys- 
tery of Catholic worship! This is the eternal, never- 
ceasing sacrifice, « offered up from the rising to the set- 
ting of the sun," not confined to one place, but celebrated 
over the whole world, not alone in stately Cathedrals, but 
in the little way-side chapel, or the Cave like that of 
Bethlehem, wherever there are assembled " the true ador- 
ers in spirit and in truth" (John iv. 23). And thus Cath- 
olics in every land, wherever there is a priest and an 
altar, can worship in a manner pleasing to God ; for they 
can, while the priest performs the sacred action, each fol- 
lowing his own devotion, say in the secret of their hearts 
_« Behold, O God our Protector, and look on the face of 
Thy Christ" (Ps. lxxxiii. 10) ; for His sake, here present 
in our midst, have mercy on us, and forgive us our mani- 
fold offences ! And, as if this were not enough, each of 
the worshippers may take into his heart the spotless 
Lamb, and be made one with Jesus, a child of God and 
an heir to Heaven. How the vision grows in beauty and 



168 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



majesty, as, by a sort of instinct, lie traces the connection 
between the Blessed Eucharist and the Incarnation, be- 
tween the Sacred Heart and the Holy Communion, and 
begins to see one great Mystery unfolding itself from 
another ; and perceives for the first time the wonderful 
invention of Almighty Love, whereby the blessed fruits 
of Calvary are brought home to every true believer, in- 
dividually and personally. 

How soon in his mind every dogma of Catholic Chris- 
tianity takes its proper place ! The whole sacramental 
system is, he sees, nothing more nor less than Christ 
really present in the midst of His people for evermore 
— passing along, blessing and touching with His hand 
those who stand in need of His help. Here bestowing 
the new life in Baptism ; there strengthening by the gift 
of the Paraclete, the children of the Faith ; now break- 
ing the fetters of the sinner, and whispering sweet w T ords 
of comfort — " Thy sins are forgiven, go in peace." Again 
he sees Him soothing the affrighted soul at the approach 
of the dread agony, " Fear not, it is I," who conquered 
death, and who will raise you up again when you have 
passed from this weary world ; then communicating to 
His priests the same commission once given to the 
Apostles — " Whose sins you shall forgive, they shall be 
forgiven." " Do this in commemoration of me." " As 
the Father hath sent me, I send you ;" and again in the 
Holy Sacrament of Matrimony blessing that happy union, 
w T hich before God and His angels symbolizes the Union 
of Christ with His mystic spouse the Church. Mary 
the Mother of God at once rises to her honored position, 
Queen of Heaven, Faithful Guardian of the Incarnation, 
and because of her free-will she became " the hand-maid 
of the Lord," and enabled Him to show visibly His 



THROUGH ITS FORMS OF WORSHIP. 169 



great love for man, made the dispensatrix of His special 
grace and favors. And scarcely has he beheld this bright 
vision dawning upon him than, like the Shepherds on 
Christmas night, he beholds the blessed angels and saints 
of God, fulfilling their happy functions of messengers of 
peace, rejoicing at the conversion of one sinner, smiling 
upon him and inviting him, at all sacrifices to enter into 
the one fold. 

And then there is another vision, full of comfort to 
such a one as this. The ties that bind him to father and 
mother, brothers, and sisters, and dear friends who may 
have passed away, are not severed. They, he believes, 
loved God in their own way, and though they were not 
externally united to the fold, they really desired to do in 
all things the blessed will of God, and so, before they 
were called to judgment, they may have received the 
great grace of true Faith and thus are saved " yet so as 
by fire and he learns that he may pray for them, that 
the time of their suffering may be shortened, and may 
hope that everything he does to please God, and offers 
for them, may soothe their sorrows, and hasten the mo- 
ment of their deliverance. In a word, the simple under- 
standing of the nature of Catholic worship, is in itself 
sufficient to give the sincere and humble inquirer after 
truth, a glimpse of the supernatural life, which every 
Catholic may enjoy in this world. 

True, there are many Catholics who do not realize these 
privileges, and there are, unfortunately for themselves, 
some, who having been brought from darkness into light, 
have sinned against the light, and fallen back into dark- 
ness again. It is scarcely possible that they, who trifle 
thus with Faith, the most precious of God's gifts, will 
escape the everlasting wrath, should the dread summons 



170 A FURTHER VIEW OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



to judgment find them " sitting in darkness and in the 
shadow of death. 55 

I hope, in the next chapter, to give a brief sketch of 
that misrepresentation and caricature of Catholic Chris- 
tianity, which is assailed by those, who, while they ima- 
gine they are attacking the Catholic Church, show, by 
their objections, that they never had any perception of its 
real character. There are some also who having once 
enjoyed the happy vision, allowed it to fade away from 
their view, and perish by the wilful neglect of their 
spiritual duties. These are most to be pitied, for they sin 
against the light, and allow themselves voluntarily to be 
blindfolded by the spirit of the world. They abuse the 
Church with a fierceness that extinguishes remorse, and 
suffer their desolate and despairing souls to be trampled 
upon by the legion of low and earthly desires, and the 
hordes of wild speculations, that invariably overwhelm 
and hopelessly extinguish the expiring embers of a lost 
Faith. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD. 171 



CHAPTEE YIH. 

Catholic Christianity Misunderstood by Free- 
thinkers. 

IN the preceding chapter, I have endeavored to fix the 
attention of my readers on the supernatural charac- 
ter of Catholic Christianity ; because it is this which 
eminently distinguishes it from all other forms of Chris- 
tianity ; and because it is the very quality which most 
exposes it to the assaults of Rationalism. Amongst the 
Christian sects outside the Catholic Church, there is prac- 
tically nothing of the supernatural. 

In some sects there is indeed a claim to supernatural 
guidance of a sensible kind. The Divine Spirit, they 
say, bears testimony to Himself in the work of conver- 
sion, and manifests to the converted soul the sweetness 
of interior peace. This is however merely subjective, 
confined to individual experience ; and from the very 
nature of the case, open to delusion. 

Worldly men regard this religious excitement as a sort 
of madness, that may produce the most deplorable effects 
on the unfortunate being who is possessed by this spirit 
of delusion, and highly dangerous to the nervous suscep- 
tibilities of others who witness the effects of this passing 
frenzy. 

It is not of the supernatural in this sense, I speak, but 
of that which is objective, or resulting from positive 
dogma. The whole of the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church are most intimately connected with the unseen 



172 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 



world. An earnest Catholic lives in a very atmosphere 
of Faith. God and His providence is ever near him. 
He feels that " in God, he moves, and has his being." 
He almost hears the rustle of Angelic wings. He knows 
that at solemn times his Divine Saviour stoops to him. 
He communes with the sainted dead, and the suffering 
Church of the faithful departed. This is what the Ration- 
alist cannot in the least understand, and most non-Catho- 
lics are in the same position. It is foolishness to them, 
and downright superstition. There was a time however 
when the entire Christian world felt the Spirit of God 
pervading not only the whole mystic body of Christ, but 
diffusing itself through every member of the vast fold ; 
not alone in their midst when gathered together for 
prayer, but ever, at all times, and in all places. Then 
men walked in God's presence, feared to offend Him, and 
aspired to commune with Him lovingly. We are, how- 
ever, gravely warned that these were " the dark ages," 
and reminded constantly, by the leaders of Free-thought, 
that we now live in the light of the nineteenth century, 
when all these old-fashioned notions have passed away 
forever. These convictions live with undying life, how- 
ever, in God's Church still, and they are the natural out- 
come of her Faith. 

This is the chief reason why Rationalists assail the 
Church. As a rule, educated men of this class have noth- 
ing to say about " Antichrist," and "the scarlet woman," 
and " Idolatry," and " Blasphemy," and " the abomina- 
tions" — subjects still most dear to ignorant Christian 
fanaticism. They are kind and respectful to the old 
Church : they pity her because she will, they say, keep 
to her old-fashioned ways ; and they would be delighted 
beyond measure if she would only take up some at least 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



173 



of their notions of progress. " Poor old thing !" they 
seem to say, " she is so good, and so respectable, so hal- 
lowed by the traditions of nineteen hundred years, so free 
from the silly airs and pretensions of these vulgar Chris- 
tian upstarts of yesterday, so sound in her moral princi- 
ples of right and wrong, so conservative, so unchangeable ! 
"What a pity 'tis she is so obstinate in her views. She 
will cling to these antiquated notions of the Mosaic nar- 
rative, and pay no heed to the demonstrations of our 
scientific men, and close her eyes and ears to the marvels 
of discovery. And then, worse than all, she is so intol- 
erant. She would, if she dared, persecute to the death 
all who presume to differ from her, and when she can- 
not crush her opponents in this way, she will try to 
satisfy her impotent rage by consigning them without 
exception to eternal flames. She does not seem to per- 
ceive the folly of imagining that men of learning are to 
be frightened, like children, with these insane threats of 
a future, of which we can absolutely know nothing. It 
makes one miserable to hear her talk so confidently of a 
Personal God, and Saints and Angels, and miracles and 
mysteries, as if we had not ' changed all that,' and demon- 
strated that whatever is beyond the reach of our tele- 
scopes, and microscopes, and spectroscopes, and the power 
of our combined scientific apparatus, cannot, by any 
stretch of the mind, have a real existence. JSTo doubt 
she is very angry because our Railways and Telegraphs 
are disturbing her repose, and our grand discoveries in 
Electricity are putting to flight the hobgoblins, on w T hich 
she feeds her crazy imagination. If she would only con- 
fine her attention to these trifles, about which this gen- 
eration of progress is only amused, and gratify the mor- 
bid taste of her infatuated votaries with tales of Hell-fire 



174 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 

and such like nonsense, one could bear with her insane 
fancies, and set them down to the natural dotage of an 
existence prolonged beyond all natural limits. But then 
she is mischievous, and uses all her influence, which is 
no doubt something superior to any power on earth [the 
immortality of the Church and her widespread influence 
are hard facts for the infidel], to check the onward march 
of mind, and the advance of true civilization. She will 
oppose onr wise laws about education, and marriage, and 
those other national institutions, with which she has 
nothing to do, and meddle with our arrangements about 
liberty, and equality, and the rights of men, and the 
rights of women, and what not, that one loses all patience, 
and would wish her sunk forever in the depths of the 
sea." 

This is I think a fair statement of the views of Free- 
thought about " the everlasting Church and I mean to 
point out how utterly mistaken they are, and how un- 
reasonable is the hatred to which they almost insensibly 
give rise, in the minds of the impatient and noisy unbe- 
lieving crowd that worship the idol of the hour, and 
would, if they had their way, plant again the goddess of 
reason on the Altar of the one true God. 

What I meant to show in the last few pages, is that 
the dislike, and hatred, and contempt for the Church, 
that sooner or later develops itself in the minds of Free- 
thinkers, is altogether different from the no-popery fury, 
which has assailed the Church for the last three-hundred 
years. The Church is an object of dislike to the leaders 
of Free-thought, not because of the calumnies of times 
past, now constantly refuted by the laborious research of 
able and unprejudiced scholars ; not because there were 
said to have been bad popes ; nor because the theology of 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



175 



the Church, misrepresented by her enemies, was offensive 
on grace, and free-will, and justification ; not even on 
account of the grosser charges of idolatry and trafficking 
in holy things, which were so freely urged against her by 
the early reformers ; but simply and solely because she 
at the present day is believed, by her stanch and rigid 
conservatism, to stand in the way of the realization of 
those Utopian schemes of communism and socialism, 
which are the unhallowed fascination of this unbelieving 
and frivolous age. 

It will be interesting then to consider the grounds of 
this fierce hatred. This narrows the question considera- 
bly. We Lave not to enter upon the ocean of ecclesiasti- 
cal history, and overhaul every cargo of offensive rubbish 
fished from the surface of political events, and floated by 
the perverse ingenuity of party zeal. We may leave the 
past to take care of itself, and devote all our attention to 
the facts and principles of the present hour. 

Is it a fact then, in the first place, that the Catholic 
Church stands in the way of scientific research? I say 
decidedly — no. From my own limited reading, and 
from my own experience of the development of scientific 
education in our colleges and schools, I can bear unfalter- 
ing testimony to the very contrary. It has been my good 
fortune to have met, amongst the Catholic clergy in 
England, Ireland, and on the continent of Europe, some 
of these giants in the vanguard of scientific progress, men 
whose brilliant discoveries are known to every learned 
institute in the whole world. 

There are few students who have not heard of the 
renowned astronomer Father Secchi, or the distinguished 
microscopist, the Abbe Count Castracani. I have con- 
versed with them both, and learned from them something 



176 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 



of the profound interest with, which their discoveries 
were received by their scientific brethren in the priest- 
hood. I often look back with unfading pleasure to the 
scene of Doctor Callan's scientific triumphs, in the col- 
lege of Maynooth, when eminent men in physical science 
gathered eagerly to witness the progress of his discoveries 
and inventions in Galvanism, and Magnetism. It was a 
delight ever to be treasured in memory, a visit to the 
magnetic observatory of the Jesuit college of Stoney- 
hurst. The Astronomer Royal in England holds Father 
Perry, and Father Sidgreaves, amongst the most eminent 
of his observers. So great was the success of the Jesuit 
college in the Rue des Postes in Paris in competing with 
the Polytechnique, for the best prizes in science and the 
higher mathematics, that a commission of learned scholars 
was appointed by the late Emperor, to examine into the 
course of the studies in this college, and to import the 
fruit of their investigation into the favorite scientific col- 
lege of France. "When I was in Paris in 1875, I met a 
young French priest of the order of Oblates, who was 
editing a polyglot dictionary of the different dialects of 
the Esquimaux, and who, though not over thirty years of 
age, was appointed to lecture at the different scientific 
assemblies gathered from all parts in that year, in the 
capital of France. 

Whoever has visited any of the great Catholic Colleges 
in Great Britain, or on the Continent, will be amazed at 
the splendid museums, and costly scientific apparatus to 
be found in every one of them. If I had a list by me 
of eminent mathematicians, and workers in Natural 
Philosophy, I could give an array of names with the pre- 
fix of Abbe, or some such word indicative of the priest- 
hood, that would prove beyond doubt that the Catholic 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



177 



Church has now, as ever, her representatives in fair pro- 
portion to other creeds, and in high position also. 

Why should she not ? seeing that her clergy, Regular 
and Secular, are eminently qualified by their ordinary 
studies to enter on this particular course if they are so 
inclined ; and that those who are not actively engaged in 
mission work, have more time and better opportunities, 
in the libraries and laboratories of the numerous colleges, 
than the generality of other students ; seeing also that the 
shortest way to distinction, and to the esteem and ap- 
proval of the great dignitaries of the Catholic Church, is 
success in those branches that are now so popular. 

Then it must be remembered that " the science of 
sciences" — Theology, necessarily includes all the facts, 
and theories, and objections, gleaned in the fields of 
scientific research. He can scarcely be considered a 
profound theologian who is not au courant with the 
latest discoveries in Geology, Chemistry, Medicine, 
Archaeology, and the laws that govern the physical 
world. 

People are sometimes amazed by the accurate know- 
ledge displayed by barristers, when the case in which 
they are engaged is connected with some other learned 
profession. But students know well, that it does not re- 
quire much time or labor, for a clever man to read up all 
that is necessary for the thorough understanding of any 
particular branch of science. The real wonder is to find 
so many theologians, who seem to have accumulated, in 
the course of forty or fifty years' study, everything that 
is essential to the full understanding of all the sciences ; 
and who are able to lecture, at an hour's notice, de omni 
re scibili ; and run the gauntlet of a public thesis which 
will include the objections that can be raised from the 



178 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 

discoveries of every branch of science against revealed 
religion. 

There is not one of the great Catholic colleges in Eu- 
rope, and America, which will not furnish its quota of 
these learned men. Why — I say again, should it not be 
so ? Will it be said that the Church is afraid of the 
light ? she, the city on the mountain, that for nearly 
nineteen hundred years has been the object of assault of 
all the ungodly powers of earth and Hell ! Ah ! — no, she 
is too experienced in conflicts of every kind, to hide her 
head at the approach of any enemy, however inflated he 
may be with that knowledge " that puffeth up," she heeds 
not the angry frown, and the scorn, and contempt of 
the unbelieving Philosophers of this proud age. Greater 
men than any this nineteenth century can boast of, — men 
who, in the schools of Athens, and Rome, and Alex- 
andria, had been trained to think and reason profoundly, 
bowed down before her learned priests, and acknow- 
ledged themselves overcome. 

Our scientists are so full of theorizing, and making 
much of every chance discovery that falls in their way, 
that they have not time for the tedious process of think- 
ing out a subject. They are so captivated with every 
fresh invention, that they forget the theories and con- 
clusions announced so dogmatically a month or two be- 
fore. If in their hurried course, they should chance to 
stumble on a fact not hitherto known, they are so jubilant 
and triumphant, that they do not perceive that, while 
they are making merry at the expense of Religion, the 
scientific sons of the Church have already seized upon the 
fact, and turned it to the advantage of Catholic Chris- 
tianity. They do not know when they are beaten ; and it 
is only when their over-excited fancies have plunged them 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



179 



into some absurd conclusion, that they become aware, by 
the laughter and derision caused by their ridiculous posi- 
tion, that they have run counter to common-sense, and 
perpetrated the stupid blunder of arguing against what 
every one but themselves knows to be quite certain. 

There is such a thing as too much light. The mind 
under such circumstances becomes dazed. Just as the 
physical organ suffers, and temporary blindness ensues, 
when the chamber of the eye is over-filled with the lumi- 
nous medium, so the mind itself seems to break down, 
when no restraint is offered to the flood of fancies let in 
upon it by a disordered imagination. 

There is no place for wild theories in the mind of a 
sound Catholic philosopher. If there seems to be a jar- 
ring or conflict between some unexpected discovery in 
nature and Divine Revelation, he feels at once the con- 
viction that the contradiction is not real. He knows 
beyond doubt that what Divine truth declares, either by 
direct Revelation, or in the book of Nature, cannot be in 
conflict. And therefore he calmly considers how the 
seeming discrepancy can be reconciled. 

It most frequently happens, as I have already said, that 
while the unbeliever is rashly exulting in a supposed vic- 
tory over revealed truth, the Catholic finds in this object 
of misplaced joy, a confirmation of his faith. Whoever 
will read attentively u The Lectures on Science and Re- 
vealed Religion" by Cardinal Wiseman, will discover 
many remarkable instances of this fact. 

There is one that just now strikes me, and as it seems 
to put the point very clearly, I mention it. I have, in 
the early chapters of this book, quoted Mallock. In Chap- 
ter XII, of his work — " Is life worth living ?" — he puts 
the objection from historical science against the Bible 



180 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 



very strongly — that the histories of other religions are 
strangely analogous to the history of Christianity. It is 
an old objection, as indeed are all the objections now so 
confidently urged by Free-thinkers, all. every one -with- 
out exception. " as oil as the hills." The force of the 
objection is to show that all religions had a common 
origin : and that Christianity, with all its mysteries and 
supernatural dogmas, can bo clearly traced in the sacred 
books of Religions, that existed in the world long before 
the time of Christ. It is a favorite objection with the 
" poor imitations of pDlished un godliness." It was put 
to me once, in a railway carriage in the colony, not in- 
deed so strongly as Matlock puts it ; for my young 
antagonist had not seen the book. I first showed him 
the objection in all its force. •• Two centuries before 
Christy Bnddha is said to have been born without a 
human father. Angels sang in heaven to announce his 
advent : an aged hermit blessed him in his mother's arms ; 
a monarch was advised, though he refused, to destroy the 
child, who. it was predicted. should be a universal ruler. 
It is told how he was once lost, and was found again in a 
temple : and how his young visdoni astonished all the 
doctors," and so on through the remarkable events in the 
early life of our Divine Lord. K You see." it is argued, 
"the Buddhist religion and the Christian had a common 
origin, neither can be from heaven." How all this appar- 
ently powerful and overwhelming argument melts into 
thin air, as we read, in the Lectures of the Cardinal (voL 
il 26 . the clear proofs established by Bentley, that this 
legend in the life of Buddha was artfully framed by the 
Brahmins in the seventh century, and inserted fraudu- 
lently in their saere a b : •: ks. TTk-.:- seemed to be a serious 
difficulty only shows, that rven the Brahmins regarded 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



181 



the Christian religion as something far superior to their 
own, when they stooped to this low trick to give their 
own legends greater plausibility. 

So far then is the Catholic Church from regarding true 
science as an enemy, that, on the contrary, she cultivates 
science, and fosters, and cherishes it, as a splendid auxiliary. 

Next it is urged that she is obstinate and intolerant. 
Well, a very short answer meets this difficulty. Truth 
is necessarily intolerant of error. It could not be Truth 
at all if it did not maintain itself against every approach 
of error. They are as different from each other as light 
is from darkness. If it be true that God the Son, the 
second Person of the Blessed Trinity, became man, and 
that our Divine Saviour is God, it is necessarily false, 
abominably and blasphemously false, that He was only a 
man. If He saved us from hell, and the power of the devil 
by His Atonement, then this Atonement cannot be the 
dreadful thing it is said to be by the advanced Rationalist. 
If it be an invention of Almighty Love to unite us to our 

Divine Saviour in the Blessed Eucharist and the Holv 

t/ 

Communion, it must be a hideous and revolting insult to 
this Divine Saviour, to treat this most Holy Sacrament 
with irreverence. If it be true that the sacraments have 
been instituted by Christ, to apply to our souls the fruits 
of His abundant redemption, they who scoff at these 
sacraments, are evidently exposing themselves to the 
wrath of God ; for " God is not mocked " with impunity. 
If there is a personal God, then Atheism is inconceivable 
madness. If man has an immortal soul, it is worse than 
absurd to say that he is only organized matter. If there 
be another life, " the bag of bones" theory, and the life 
of a brute and the death of a brute is the extreme of 
folly. If there be a Hell, how awful is the daring of 



182 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 

those who, on its very brink, defy their Maker to punish 
them eternally ! Such extremes can never meet ; there- 
fore truth must reprobate, and hate and abominate error 
as the greatest of evils. 

But the Free-thinkers go on to say — yes, but the old 
Catholic Church hates not only error, but those who pro- 
fess error, and would persecute those who differ from her, 
if she dared, and actually consigns them all to eternal 
flames. I say distinctly — no. The Church is as faithful 
to her principles of loving mercy and pity for the unfor- 
tunate, who are in danger of being lost, as she is faithful 
to her trust in preserving the dogmas once committed to 
her keeping by her Divine Founder. It is not the Cath- 
olic Church, as a society of men framing laws according 
to the best of their judgment, it is the Catholic Church 
inspired and directed by the Spirit of God, that declares 
it to be a solemn and eternal truth, that " without Faith it 
is impossible to please God," and that "he who belie veth 
not, shall be condemned." So God Himself has willed 
it. This is His law, and not the law of men. It is her 
Divine Founder who has said, " The wicked shall go into 
everlasting fire." 

The Catholic Church firmly believing that this is the 
terrible sanction of the Divine law, constantly proclaims 
it. If she did not proclaim it, she would be infinitely 
more guilty than the wretch, who, seeing a fellow-crea- 
ture blindly advancing with unguarded steps to the edge 
of a precipice, and having it in his power to warn and 
save him, let him go on to destruction. Surely such a 
man would be a murderer, as certainly as if he deprived 
his victim of life by an act of positive violence. I say 
that the Catholic Church would be infinitely more guilty 
than this murderer, if she did not, " in season and out of 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



183 



season/' repeat her warnings, because the fate of those 
who die impenitent is fixed for all eternity. The unfor- 
tunate being who falls over a precipice may have a mo- 
mentary consciousness of his fate, and so yield to the in- 
stinctive cry of suffering humanity, and say, if not with 
the lips, in his heart at least, " God have mercy on me, and 
forgive me !" Who will judge and determine, that God, 
Who has implanted that instinct in every human being 
civilized or savage, will not hearken to it ? Certainly it 
is not the teaching of Catholic Christianity that one who 
has cried aloud for mercy, though it be only in his utmost 
need, shall not receive mercy. She does not judge at all 
of individuals ; but she declares, with all the force of her 
authority, that the unbeliever who defies God to the last, 
and perishes with the proud cry of the demon on his 
lips — " I will not serve" — shall share the fate of demons 
for ever and ever. 

If the Free-thinker will press his objection, and take 
up the old gossip about the Inquisition, and " the fires of 
Smithfield " and all that, I could only smile at this evi- 
dence of ill-humor, and when he had time to recover his 
temper, would remind him, that in the ages of Faith, 
when men valued their eternal salvation above all earthly 
blessings, they were wont to be indignant and unsparing 
against those who endeavored to stir up religious quarrels, 
and dissensions, and to form sects ; because they believed 
with the Apostle, that they who do such things would 
neither themselves "obtain the kingdom of God" (Gal. 
v. 21), nor suffer those who listened to their corrupt teach- 
ing, to secure this blessing. 

I would tell him that times change, and the fashions 
and ways of people with them ; that laws are not now so 
Draconian in their spirit as even half a century ago, when 



184 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 



the theft of sixpence worth was punished with death; 
that we cannot judge of the spirit of the present times 
by what we read of the past, nor the fierce intolerance of 
other times by the more gentle and large-hearted feelings 
of to-day. I would try to make him understand that there 
was a great deal to be said about the cruel persecutions of 
those very people who charge the Catholic Church with 
intolerance ; that worldly policy, and the plans of Gov- 
ernments had much to do with the Inquisition ; and that, 
as to the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the other ter- 
rible things, which have been so often cooked and re- 
hashed that they remind one of the twice-boiled cabbage 
or " thanatos" of the Greek writer — they are things of 
the past, about which men might dispute their whole life 
long, without coming to a satisfactory conclusion. They 
are enough to sicken to death any one with the least pre- 
tensions to scholarship, who has attempted to wade through 
the broad shallow waters of conflicting testimony, and 
bitter argument, that surrounds questions of this sort. 
Let us keep to the present. Free-thinkers may feel quite 
assured that the spirit of the Catholic Church towards 
those who blaspheme the Saviour, and make a mockery 
of His sufferings, is all expressed in that Divine prayer — 
" Father forgive them, for they know not what they do F 
" But why will the Catholic clergy talk so constantly 
about the supernatural and mysteries ? What can they 
know about such things ? And why make so much of 
miracles and apparitions, in which no sensible man can 
believe? and why encourage pilgrimages, that foster 
these delusions ? Why will they not confine themselves 
to that sum and substance of all practical religion — con- 
tained in the words of the Apostle — 6 Honor all men ; 
love the brotherhood; fear God: honor the king 5 ? (1 



BY FKEE-THINKERS. 



185 



Pet. 11. 17.) Why endeavor to bring forward, into the 
light of this nineteenth century, such old wives' stories 
of the dark ages about the Devil and Spiritism. All this 
is enough," they excitedly remark, " to bring her teach- 
ing into contempt, and to make her hateful to men of 
intelligence and education." 

I have already explained the nature of mysteries ; they 
are the natural outcome of a Religion which professes to 
give us the message of the Infinite about His own 
nature, and His relations to His creatures. If there were 
not mysteries in such a Religion, it would be on the face 
of it a clear proof that this Religion was earth-born, and 
the invention of men. I have also explained that mira- 
cles, or extraordinary interventions of Almighty power, 
preventing in certain cases the ordinary effects of natural 
laws, is the obvious and necessary consequence of a firm 
belief in the Providence of a supreme being, who by 
His goodness is bound to care for the creatures He has 
called into existence. 

The Catholic Church believes in a good God, who has 
taught us to call Him "Father;" and in whose im- 
mensity " we live, move, and have our being." Catholics 
believe in a God who has made us free, and who would 
not, much as He desires the salvation of all, interfere in 
any way with the exercise of their liberty. Therefore it 
is that the Church is never weary in impressing on the 
minds of her children that this God, as His Son our 
Saviour taught us in express words, knows us by name, 
has counted the very hairs of our head, and loves each of 
us infinitely more than the wild flowers of the field, 
which He has clothed with so much beauty. We Catho- 
lics are taught to believe that whatsoever we ask in the 
name of Jesus Christ, it will be given us ; and that if we 



186 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 

have Faith and unbounded confidence in Him, the pow- 
ers of nature shall not stand in the way of the accom- 
plishment of our wishes. "Will not a God, who has 
made us these gracious promises, fulfil them ? It is no 
trouble to Him. He knows all things without an effort. 
He is present everywhere, all created things, save man, 
obey His will. We could not believe in God, if we did 
not also believe in His Providence, and in the working 
of that Providence in the supernatural way of miracles ; 
and there can be no truth of this belief that can more 
practically concern us, or which we should keep more 
constantly before our eyes. 

Pilgrimages, and processions to Holy shrines, are only 
the outward expression of our Faith, a most admirable 
means of keeping it alive within us by mutual edifica- 
tion, and of proclaiming this Faith to others, who do not 
believe this consoling doctrine of an ever watchful and 
loving Providence, that they, seeing these things and the 
wonders that are wrought, may glorify God who is so 
amiable and condescending to those who trust in His 
loving care, and in the day of trouble, call upon Him. 
I have spoken with those who have been present at 
wonderful cures, instantaneously wrought in favor of the 
sick and infirm. They assured me that, never before did 
they so realize to themselves what this Faith in the un- 
seen Guardian and Sustainer of their lives actually meant, 
as when the touch of His healing power was in a mo- 
ment manifested to a great multitude, and they heard 
them, as in the days when our Saviour wrought His 
miracles, cry out, as if with one voice, " Lo ! God again 
hath visited His people." 

Farther on in this book, when I treat of the phases of 
modern unbelief, I shall have something to say of this 



BY FREE-THINKERS. 



187 



accursed Spiritism, which is following the track of avowed 
and open infidelity, and feeding the delusions of those 
who, rejecting Revelation, are endeavoring, by unholy 
rites, to peep into the secrets of the future life. 

There is another objection to the action of the Church 
on society, which more fittingly comes in here : " Why," 
say her enemies, " does the Church interfere in the affairs 
of this world % Can she not confine herself to her spi- 
ritual functions ? And, since, she will obstinately believe 
in the supernatural, why not satisfy her longing for 
preaching and teaching, by subjects connected with this 
higher sphere ? What has she to do with our civil laws, 
and social relations, and material progress, and above all 
why will she attempt to circumscribe our national 
liberties ?" 

Let me first of all say that the Catholic Church has 
ever been the enthusiastic defender of the true liberties 
of oppressed nationalities : in the next chapter, I mean 
to show why the Catholic Church, in the discharge of her 
important mission, " to preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture," is bound to watch and guard, as the apple of her 
eye, the educational interests, and the domestic and family 
relations of all classes of her children. It is only miscon- 
ceptions of the great principle of " Divine right," that lie 
at the bottom of the strong prejudices which prevail 
amongst Free-thinkers against what they love to call 
" the despotism" of the Church. Because the Pope is a 
sovereign ruler, it is inferred, that all the sympathies of 
Catholics must be in favor of Monarchy. The Sovereign 
rules, according to Catholic theology, by right Divine, 
therefore, it is argued, any departure from this form of 
Government must be regarded as direct opposition to the 
Divine will. 



188 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD 



Never was there a greater mistake. The governing 
power, let it be monarchical or republican, let the ruler 
be Emperor, Empress, King, Queen or President, is, on 
Catholic principles, the visible representative of God, for 
the maintenance of that order which is essential to the 
existence of Society. God has made man to live in com- 
munity : language alone, which distinguishes man from 
all other creatures in this world, proves this. But men 
cannot live together in any form of community without 
a head or ruler. In its most elementary state, or the 
family, human beings, to live together in peace and unity, 
must have a head, the father of the family. The tribe 
must have its chief ; the nation must have its ruler. 
These are absolute truisms. No one with a grain of 
common-sense will argue, that every member of a com- 
munity can do as he or she pleases : there must be mutual 
concessions of individual right, else the family even will 
be like a bear-garden. In the maintenance of order in 
the family, the father rules without question or doubt. 
But when the family swells into a tribe, and the tribe 
into a people or a nation, the appointment of a ruler, and 
the form of Government, are left to the choice of those 
who require to be governed. The Catholic Church has 
never interfered with this choice, unless when invited to 
do so by the people themselves, and in the interests of 
order. When all Christendom looked up to the successor 
of St. Peter, as the vicar of Christ, the real master and 
ruler of the Christian Commonwealth, the Holy Father 
was by the free consent of nations, the supreme arbiter 
of disputes, and his decision was received as the law of 
God. But in whatever way the ruler was elected, whether 
he was an hereditary Sovereign, or one chosen by the 
votes of the majority, once in the position of authority, 



BY FREE- THINKERS. 



189 



he ruled as the representative of God ; and his authority- 
was binding on the consciences of his Christian subjects. 
They obeyed him, not because he was popular, not be- 
cause of his good and amiable qualities, not through fear, 
not for wrath, " but for conscience' sake." 

This is what is meant by " Divine right" in the teach- 
ing of the Catholic Church. The ruler, call him by 
whatever name you will, should " carry the sword," and 
indicate order, according to the laws of his people; not 
by virtue of any contract, not because the subjects gave 
up the right over their own lives, for their lives do not 
belong to them, they belong to their Creator ; but because 
the ruler held authority and right from God. 

An effort is sometimes made to prove, that the present 
persecution of the Church in France, is owing to the fact 
that the pastors of the Church in that country are op- 
posed to the Republican form of Government. There 
may be strong feeling on this point ; but the principle I 
have stated is as firm as the rock on which Christ founded 
His Church. The government de facto, the choice of 
the nation rules by Divine right ; and he who rebelliously 
resists this authority, " purchases to himself damnation." 
If there has been no free choice, if a nation is robbed of 
its inherent rights, and compelled by brute force to sub- 
mit to a ruler, there is question then only of patient sub- 
mission, until there is a reasonable prospect of rectify- 
ing the cruel wrong. Catholic theologians have laid 
down principles on this point, which should find favor 
with every one who values true liberty. 

There is nothing, in the history of the times in which 
we live, to show, that the Catholic Church favors one 
particular form of government more than another. One 
thing is quite certain that Catholics who enjoy the freedom 



190 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD. 



of the children of God, who are not harassed and dis- 
turbed on account of their religious principles, feel no- 
where more at home than under a republican form of 
government. Never in the history of the Church, have 
her institutions expanded so amazingly, and so rapidly, 
as in the United States of America. "If," as Father 
Midler puts it, " a great pope could say in truth that he 
was nowhere more pope than in America," every Catho- 
lic can and does also say with certainty " Nowhere can 
I be a better Catholic than in the United States." 

The questions of Education and Marriage require a 
chapter to themselves. I think it will not be difficult to 
show, that Catholic Christianity, in contending for the 
rights of a Christian education, and the indissolubility of 
the marriage-tie, is only fulfilling a most important duty, 
and in no way hindering the real progress and happiness 
of the human race. 



EDUCATION AND MABRIAGE. 



191 



CHAPTER IX. 

Catholic Christianity in Relation to Education 
and Marriage. 

THE Catholic Church has always maintained, that it 
is an essential part of her mission from above, to 
watch over the education of her children. This duty is 
necessarily implied in the words — "Teach all nations." 
Teaching does not mean simply to instruct in science, 
and literature, and languages, and all that knowledge 
which is useful in the affairs of this world; its most im- 
portant aim should be to fit man for the great end of his 
being, that life which is eternal. Education properly 
understood should direct itself mainly to the formation of 
character on sound moral principles ; so that children 
may, from the first use of reason, be trained to fear God, 
and love Him, to honor and obey their parents, to curb 
their young passions, and hate sin, and thus grow up to 
be good and useful members of the community, and to 
be made fit for the kingdom of Heaven. 

There can be no reasonable prospect of educating in 
this sense, unless Religion is cultivated in the young 
mind, as well as other plants of knowledge ; and there- 
fore the Church has always insisted, that in her schools, 
as well as in the family, the young shall be taught to 
know God, and be faithful to His law. 

This principle finds no favor with those who regard 
material progress as the chief end of human life. The 
future is, according to the views of Free-thought, quite 



192 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 



uncertain. It is one of those things about which, Ration- 
alists and Agnostics say, we can know nothing positive, 
and therefore, they argue, man's whole attention should 
be devoted to what is real and tangible. As the Church 
declares, in the very words of our Divine Lord, that sal- 
vation is "the one thing necessary," and makes this 
grand principle the basis of all her teaching as regards the 
welfare of her children, the unbelieving world fiercely 
maintains that the main point of human life should be to 
make the best of our short time on earth, in securing for 
ourselves whatever we can of the good things of this 
world. " The present only is ours, let us enjoy it wisely 
while we may ; the future must take care of itself." 

Of course, where there is so direct a conflict about the 
main object of life, the deductions from these opposing 
principles must manifest themselves clearly and dis- 
tinctly ; and so the Church and the world are at open 
war on this question of Education. Hence the two sys- 
tems, Education grounded on religion, or denomina- 
tional, and education, or rather Instruction, from which 
all religious teaching is excluded, commonly called sec- 
ular and undenominational. 

I would briefly consider the matter as regards social 
progress. Has Free-thought good and sound reasons for 
denouncing the Catholic Church as the foe of material 
progress, and the happiness of peoples, because she re- 
quires that Religion shall necessarily be associated with 
other instruction in the elementary schools ? I take it 
for granted, that the most advanced leaders of unbelief 
will not think of carrying the question into the bosom of 
the family. They will most assuredly not dream of in- 
terfering with good fathers and mothers, who do their 
best to infuse into the minds of their little ones that holy 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



193 



fear of God, " which is the beginning of wisdom," and 
who endeavor to train them "to avoid evil and do good." 

Indeed the advocates of secular education, as a rule, 
rather insist on the necessity of this domestic religious 
teaching, when they would show that their system does 
not necessarily exclude religion altogether from the 
minds of youth. The care of parents, supplemented by 
Sunday-schools, will, they would have us believe, supply 
the want of religious training in the school-room. I may 
note here that this is in reality a complete fallacy, and 
well known as such by all who have practical experience 
in the bringing up of children. Parents are bound by 
the Catholic Church to teach their children the catechism, 
and their prayers, and religious duties, even when these 
children receive daily instruction in good Catholic schools ; 
for if the impressions produced in school are not fixed in 
the mind, and confirmed by home-training, they will 
scarcely take firm hold of the youthful conscience. But 
there will be little or nothing to establish there, if a con- 
siderable time is not allotted in the school to daily relig- 
ious instruction. Amongst the poor, who have to work 
hard from morning till night, even the best disposed 
parents can do little more than hear their children say 
their morning and evening prayers, and repeat the com- 
mandments, and some of the fundamental truths of re- 
ligion. Many are not competent to explain the catechism. 
When we see how this duty is neglected by the rich who 
have education and plenty of time to inculcate religion, 
it will be understood at once that religious instruction 
confined to the family, or to the hour or half -hour in the 
Sunday-school, means, no religious instruction at all. At 
best, the few moments devoted to this work at home and 
the hour or half -hour once a week in the Sunday-school, 



194 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 

serve only to keep alive the tender flower, planted and 
watered with assiduous care by pious hands in the hearts 
of the young. 

But to return to the argument which would exclude 
Religion from the schools, I will first of all, as I have 
done all through in treating the objections of unbelief, 
put the points opposed to us as plainly and as forcibly as 
I can. 

I think the opponents of religious education must 
reason somewhat after this fashion. " Ignorance, in any 
large section of the population of a state, is a positive 
evil of the most formidable character. If men cannot 
read and write and know how to use their brains, they 
are mere drones in the busy hive, they can feel no in- 
terest in the common weal. They must, from the very 
nature of the case, be intensely selfish ; they must be for- 
ever wrapped up in their own unprofitable thoughts. 
They can do very little to benefit themselves, and they 
cannot help others. They are constantly exposed to the 
danger of being made instruments of social mischief, and 
the dupes and tools of designing persons, and conse- 
quently they become a source of trouble and expense to 
the society that harbors them. They can know nothing 
of sound sanitary laws and wise regulations, to promote 
the health and comfort of the community ; and so they 
may, at any moment, become plague-spots, and centres 
of disease, and rot in filth and squalid poverty, a misery 
to themselves, and a fruitful source of danger to their 
fellows. There must therefore be no class in the State 
that shall not be educated. If any, through laziness 
or indifference, or blindness to the advantages of know- 
ing how to read and write and cipher, will hang back, 
and keep their children from the public schools, they 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



195 



must be compelled to send them. Now, Religion 
stands in the way of this public benefit. If a school is 
denominational, or endeavors to propagate the religious 
views of any sect, forthwith there is an outcry against 
State education. Parents will justly complain that they 
are compelled, by fine and imprisonment, to send their 
children to schools, where there is interference with the 
rights of conscience. Hence we are bound in the in- 
terests of the common good, to keep clear of Religion 
altogether. If children are taught in our public schools 
only to read and write and some of the branches of 
ordinary knowledge, there can be no well-grounded 
complaints, if the Government insists that all must be 
compelled to partake of this perfectly harmless benefit. 
This is the only way in which the difficulty of diffusing 
elementary education through the masses, can be over- 
come. Parents if they set such value on Religion, must 
teach it at home. Children can learn quite enough of it 
in the Sunday classes of the particular denomination to 
which they belong. But we cannot, and we will not be 
thwarted in our plans for the general benefit, by these 
religious differences and unseemly squabbles." 

This is about what it comes to in the views of those 
who contend for purely secular and compulsory educa- 
tion. And, because the Catholic Church denounces this 
system as unchristian and " Godless," it is considered as 
proved beyond the possibility of contradiction, that she 
stands in the way of real progress. 

I suppose that those who reason in this way would go 
farther, and urge that some education is better than none 
at all, and since the State has a right, in self-defence, to 
protect itself against the evils of ignorance, it is the duty 
of " the powers that be" to sweep away all the barriers 



196 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 

that stupidity, or fanaticism, or superstition, can raise in 
the way of wholesome legislation. 

To all this reasoning, which seems very specious and 
satisfactory, I would reply, Let us examine what are the 
actual effects of this " godless" system. This is the most 
satisfactory of all tests. Compulsory education, in which 
religious instruction has no part, has been tried for a con- 
siderable time in many countries ; has it been productive 
of the good expected from it ? Suppose we examine the 
working of the system, and its results, on the Continent 
of Europe, and in the " common-schools" of America, 
where it has been in operation for about half a century, 
we will be enabled, in the simplest and easiest and most 
sure way, to form a judgment on the question. 

I contend that these results present abundant reasons 
for admiring the wisdom of the Church, and condemning 
the short-sighted policy which would have us regard 
secular compulsory education as a panacea for all the 
evils of society. This system, judged in its effects for 
the last forty or fifty years, has proved worse than a 
failure — an aggravation, rather than a remedy, for the 
evils complained of. 

In Prussia, where the system was first enforced, and 
rigidly carried out, in accordance with the military spirit 
that directs all the institutions of that country, the 
secular plan has been long ago abandoned. At first, the 
statesmen, who directed this important work, believed 
that secular education was the only plan by which they 
could overcome the difficulties caused by religious dif- 
ferences, and the public schools were in the beginning, 
purely undenominational. But it was soon found, although 
the Religious differences are less in Prussia than in most 
other countries, from the fact that only the two great 



EDUCATION AND MAKRIAGE. 



197 



principles of authority and free inquiry are recognized, 
no regard being paid to the subdivisions of peculiar sects — 
it would not work. There for a time, the teachers were 
chosen in equal proportions from the two Religions, Catho- 
lic and Protestant — and the schools were called " simul- 
taneous." This it was hoped would quiet jealousies. It 
did so in fact, but it was found, when the teachers were 
prevented from giving any religious instruction, that a 
fatal indifference to all religion was the consequence. 
Freethinkers would no doubt hail this result as a sign of 
hopeful progress, indicating the advent of a sort of re- 
ligious unity. But the Prussian Government did not 
think so. The men at the head of the educational de- 
partment clearly saw the deplorable effects of forgetful- 
ness of God, and the claims of conscience. This state of 
mind soon manifested itself, by the absence of all respect 
for authority, and the wide spread of revolutionary 
theories, and secret societies, and ever-growing scandalous 
immorality. 

As early as 1822, the minister, Von Allenstein, in the 
Cabinet rescript for that year, April 27th, calling atten- 
tion to this state of things, gave expression to his views 
in favor of a return to denominational education. " Ex- 
perience has shown," he says, "that in these secular 
schools, the chief matter of education is not sufficiently 
cared for ; and it lies in the nature of the case that it can- 
not be. The intention of these schools, to wit, the pro- 
motion of tolerant feelings between the members of the 
two communions, is seldom or never attained." Speak- 
ing at a later period, he says — " The time which has 
elapsed since 1848, appears to have wrought a general 
conviction among all practical men, that the denomina- 
tional school is the only school that is at present possible 



198 CATHOLIC CHRISTI A NIT Y IN RELATION TO 

in Germany." The Government in consequence changed 
its system, and established schools where Catholics and 
Protestants might be taught under the direction of their 
own pastors. The elementary schools in Prussia have 
been, for nearly thirty years, purely denominational. If 
the school is for Catholics, the teachers are Catholic, and 
the books Catholic : if the school is Protestant, the books 
and teachers are Protestant. 

I believe that the harmony, and good feeling shown by 
Catholics and Protestants, during the late war with France, 
the healthy spirit of patriotism, and the earnestness of 
purpose that animated all ranks of the Prussian army, 
can be easily traced to the admirable system of education 
adopted by the government, and the principles of social 
order, respect for authority, and trust in God's providence 
and blessing, produced by sound religious training. 

Any one can mark the fatal consequences of banishing 
Religion from the schools in France, in the misfortunes 
that have beset this misguided country. When " the 
citizen king" drove out the pastors and Religious from 
the schools, it was not long before he reaped the fruits 
of this destructive policy. " In the broad glare of the 
Revolutionary history of 1848," says J. C. Colquhoun, 
" in that chaos of confusion, delirium, and dreams, when 
socialists raved, and the infidel mob plundered, the lead- 
ers were the schoolmasters, and their scholars were the 
masses." To what other cause can be attributed the 
miseries of the days of the Commune ? 

When I read the admirable work of Maxime du Camp — 
" Les Convulsions de Paris" I could easily see, that it was 
in the neutral schools that were trained those demons in 
human flesh, who excited the horror and detestation of 
the entire civilized world. The wretches, from whose 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



199 



minds the State had trampled out the notion of God, and 
right and wrong, and anything like morality, became, in 
the brief period of their sovereign power, more thoroughly 
brutish, than the most ferocious savages, that have ever 
contended with civilized nations. 

In reading the account of the reign of the Commune, 
one cannot help thinking of " the dangerous times" pre- 
dicted by the Apostle, as signs of the " last days" of the 
world, — " men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, 
haughty, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, un- 
grateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slan- 
derers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, trait- 
ors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more 
than of God " (2 Tim. iii. 2, 3). Every downward step, 
in the ladder of impiety and unmanly wickedness traced 
by the Apostle, has been formed in these neutral schools, 
where a government, that once was Christian, proclaims 
— "There is neutrality as to the existence of God," and 
where the State forbids " even the mention of His Holy 
Name." 

The "common schools" were to have done wonders 
for America. Ignorance, it was said, is the Mother of 
Yice, and when every citizen of the United States knew 
how to read and write and cipher, then there would 
commence a sort of Millennium of prosperity. They ban- 
ished God and religion from the schools, that they might 
make education compulsory ; and now, after about fifty 
years' experience of the working of these schools, what 
is the moral state of American society? I will give a 
few statements of what American writers say on the sub- 
ject. 

I may not mention in this book the thousandth part 
of what I have read on this painful matter ; nor do more 



200 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN" RELATION TO 

than hint at the fruits of Godless education, which are 
poisoning the noble energies of a people, who, half a cen- 
tury ago, promised to be the leaders in the march of real 
freedom, and the true progress of humanity. One is 
saddened and humiliated, as he turns over the pages that 
record a material prosperity such as the world has never 
seen, side by side with a decadence in morality that might 
rival the worst days of expiring paganism. It is esti- 
mated that about half the population of the United 
States, or thirty millions, have set up the idolatry of 
wealth — and the pleasures and comforts that wait on this 
god of the earth, in the place of our Divine Redeemer. 
Probably more than this number profess no distinct 
Christian belief, and have broken altogether with the 
venerable traditions of Christianity. How far this affects 
sound morality is apparent to any student of history, who 
pictures to himself the sad days before our Divine Lord 
appeared on earth, when, " men professing themselves to 
be wise, they became fools" (Rom. i. 22), "and God gave 
them up to the desires of their heart." 

Abundant evidence is furnished by the organs of pub- 
lic opinion, that such are the sad consequences of endeav- 
oring to push the Almighty out of His own world, and 
to keep away from Him the little ones, with whom He 
loves to dwell. " Society in New England," says the 
Cincinnati Enquirer, " if we are to credit the data of 
physicians, is but a mass of sores, the poison of which is 
so virulent that — [here some grievous crimes are detailed] 
■ — are scarcely considered crimes, so common, so every- 
day an occurrence have they become." 

The New York Express makes the following notable 
statement — " From the absence of all religion in educa- 
tion what follows ? Another consequence not less fatal. 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



201 



It has banished religion from the entire life of the great 
majority of the American people — there are about three 
fourths of the whole population who belong to no church, 
profess no religion, are in no way occupied with the des- 
tination of the soul, living as if it were certain that man 
had nothing to expect beyond time, more than the 
brute." " This absence of moral restraint," says the 
New York Express of the 6th February, 1869, " has pro- 
duced the same effect on morality, as the same cause pro- 
duced, one thousand eight hundred years ago, in the 
decrepit Rome of the Csesars. In the older States of 
Maine, and Massachusetts, the number of children is in- 
comparably less than it was ; the proportion is so enor- 
mous, that we dare not publish it." 

In the New York Times of the same date, we read — 
" We Americans by birth are decreasing rapidly. For 
the last ten years, the number of marriages has decreased 
in an appalling manner." " Statistics," says Father 
Michael Miiller, a Redemptorist, " have been frequently 
published to show, that, in certain States of the Union, 
and in certain districts of those States, the births did not, 
and do not, equal the deaths ; and were it not for the for- 
eign population among us, many of those districts, and 
not a few of those States would be depopulated in a few 
years. Massachusetts and New York lead the van in this 
criminal record." The same author quotes the statements 
of several Doctors, eminent in their profession, giving 
their names and addresses in full, and the statements are 
most alarming to all who feel an interest in the growth 
and prosperity of the great Republic. An idea of the 
nature of what these men say may be formed from one 
passage — " In some of our large cities, a lady who is the 
mother of more than two children is looked upon as un- 



202 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 

fashionable :" or from the following extract of a letter 
addressed by Dr. M. B. Wright in I860, to the Medical 
Society of Ohio, " The time is not far distant when chil- 
dren will be sacrificed among -us with as little hesitation 
as among the Hindoos, unless we stop it here and now." 
That the horrible immorality, to which these statements 
point, is intimately connected with the absence of moral 
and religious training in the "common schools" is 
abundantly proved, by the revelations made from time 
to time in the public newspapers of the conduct of the 
pupils. 

Some years ago, the Boston Times published full 
details of the development of shocking depravity in one 
of the public schools of that city. It is not so long ago, 
that the leading papers in New York were obliged to 
denounce revolting scandals connected with these estab- 
lishments. I forbear to transcribe statements that lie 
before me, from the chief newspapers in Chicago, and 
which were corroborated by the Daily Sentinel of 
Indianapolis, the editor declaring that what was said of 
the " common schools" in the Chicago newspapers, was 
true of the schools in this city also. When I read in this 
book of Father Miiller, that the moral character of the 
Public schools in many of the cities of America had sunk 
so low, that even the public courtesans disguised them- 
selves in the uniform of these establishments, in order 
the more surely to ply their foul avocation, I felt that 
this was saying all that could be said with prudence, to 
show the fatal tendency of education, when completely 
severed from Religion and God, to ruin the morality of 
the rising generation. 

Any one of common intelligence can see at once that, 
when it requires constant care and watchfulness to main- 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



203 



tain purity and innocence amongst children who are care- 
fully taught to fear God, and say their prayers, and go 
regularly to the Sacraments, it must be next to an impossi- 
bility to preserve morality, where every salutary restraint 
on the conscience is ignored or ridiculed. Happily there 
are natures that spurn the filth of gross criminality — the 
children of good mothers who shrink instinctively from 
anything that offends moral purity ; but let even these be 
exposed, for hours every day to the heavy atmosphere of 
feverish sin, and sooner or later they will be affected by 
the contagion. I think I have said enough to show that 
schools without Religion, and where the name of God is 
never mentioned, or as they are very properly called 
" Godless schools," are not hot-beds of morality. 

I have not entered into the theory of the question ; it 
is too large to be touched upon in a book like this, meant 
only for the passing reader. The proof of my position, 
that I have briefly set forward, is the plainest and most 
convincing — " By their fruits you shall know them." 

The Church is not opposed to the spread of education, 
but this means sound education, in which the moral char- 
acter is developed by Religious teaching. Any other 
education t0nds only " to bring out" the evil propensities 
of youth, and is, as regards the progress and well-being 
of society, worse than useless. Mere instruction in the 
rudiments of education will not check the growth and 
spread of the vices, which are the desolation of healthy 
society. 

Mr. Clifford, several years Governor of Massachusetts, 
where the "common schools" have been more pushed 
forward than in any other State of the Union, very 
wisely remarks, "Without the sanctifying element of 
Religion, I am by no means certain that the mere culti- 



204 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 

vation of the intellect does not increase the exposure to 
crime, by enlarging the sphere of man's capacity to min- 
ister through its agency, to his sensual and corrupt desires. 
I can safely say, as a general inference drawn from my 
somewhat extensive observation of crime and crimi- 
nals, that as flagrant cases, and as depraved characters 
have been exhibited among a class of persons who have 
enjoyed the ordinary elementary instruction, in our New 
England schools, and in some instances in the higher in- 
stitutions of learning, as could be found by the most dili- 
gent investigation among the convicts of Norfolk Island, 
or at Botany Bay." " You may alter the nature of crime," 
says the Marquis of Salisbury, in the debate in the House 
of Lords, March, 1869, " you may change the paths by 
which the criminal will proceed, but crime is a conse- 
quence of moral depravity, and the mode in which it 
will be committed will be a matter of calculation with 
the criminal, no matter what amount of education may 
be given him in our national schools." 

The fact is, as all thoughtful men will admit, to edu- 
cate without attempting to form the moral character 
by the aid of Religion, is only to put polished weapons 
into the hands of those who, from evil inclination, or 
wicked associations, are the worst enemies of social or- 
der. 

Some people run away with the idea that free schools 
for the poor are one of the fruits of modern civilization. 
But the Catholic Church, long ago, was the first to estab- 
lish schools for the free education of the people. " As 
early as a.d. 529," says Father Miiller, "we find the 
Council of Yaison recommending the establishment of 
public schools. A Council at Rome in 836, ordained, 
that there should be three kinds of schools throughout 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



205 



Christendom : episcopal, parochial in towns and villages, 
and others, wherever there could be found place and op- 
portunity. The Council of Lateran, in 1179, ordained 
the establishment of a grammar school in every Cathe- 
dral, for the gratuitous instruction of the poor. In the 
present day, in every street in Rome, there are, at short 
distances, public primary schools for the education of the 
children of the middle and lower classes. Rome, with a 
population of about 158,000 souls, has 372 public primary 
schools, with 482 teachers, and over 14,000 children at- 
tending them ; whilst Berlin, generally believed to be far 
in advance of all other cities in the work of primary 
education, and with a population double that of Eome, 
has only 264 such schools." 

I argue then, from the fruits of " Godless education," 
that the system is opposed to real progress. Let every 
member of the community be taught to read, and write, 
and cipher, by all means I say ; but at the same time, let 
the chief element of sound education be carefully at- 
tended to. If the governments of civilized nations will 
only help the Catholic Church in a liberal spirit, there 
will be no need of compulsory laws to push forward gen- 
eral education. As a rule, Parents will discharge their 
obligations, and the Church is never weary in teaching 
the importance of this primary obligation. But if the 
Church is fettered, in her efforts to provide a sound reli- 
gious education for her children ; if Catholics are unjustly 
compelled to support schools where no religion is taught, 
and deprived of state aid towards the support of their 
own schools ; if this burden is flung upon the poor, and 
consequently there are not schools enough for their ac- 
commodation, it is a cruel wrong to attribute this want 
to a spirit of opposition to real progress, and to charge 



206 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO 



the Catholic Church with an obstinate and unreasonable 
determination of raising obstacles to the action of en- 
lightened legislation. 

The Church seeing clearly the evil of " Godless educa- 
tion," is bound to use all her influence to oppose this 
evil. Ho one will contend that, if the State chose to 
force one Eeligion on its subjects, they would be bound 
to- obey so tyrannical and despotic an order. But no 
Eeligion is worse by far than the religion of a particular 
sect of. Christians ; and therefore, in opposing secular and 
godless schools, the Catholic Church is only struggling 
for that religious freedom, which should be the glory 
and the pride of all good governments to maintain. 
Hence I conclude that the prejudice against the Church, 
arising from the fact of her opposition to undenomi- 
national education, is utterly groundless ; and that, far 
from hating her for her sturdy determination to resist, in 
every shape and form, what she considers as one of the 
most blighting curses of modern civilization, honest men 
of every shade of belief should honor her, as the faithful 
guardian of the rights of civil liberty. 

As regards the question of the indissolubility of the mar- 
riage tie, and the steady determined action of the Church 
against civil marriages, and divorce, I need not say much. 
Any one who observes the tendencies of the present age 
to facilitate in every way the separation of husband and 
wife, for the most frivolous causes, and the effect of these 
separations on the family, and the individuals who sue 
for divorce, and on the general tone of morality, where 
these things are fashionable, far from condemning, must 
admire the action of the Catholic Church. To oppose 
the violation of the bond of marriage is to struggle for 
real and enlightened progress, and to stand in the way of 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



207 



the rapid descent of Christian society towards the depths 
of Pagan degradation. 

"It is," says Father Miiller, "the holy sacrament of 
Marriage that gives sanctity to the family, and strength 
to civil society. It is the Catholic Church alone that has 
always regarded the Christian marriage as the corner- 
stone of society ; and at that corner-stone, the Popes 
stood guard for eighteen centuries, by insisting that 
Christian marriage is one, holy, and indissoluble." 

"If the Popes," says the Protestant Von Miiller, 
"could hold up no other merit than that which they 
gained by protecting monogamy against the brutal lusts 
of those in power, notwithstanding bribes, threats, and 
persecutions, that alone would render them immortal for 
all future ages." 

It would be going beyond the boundary I have marked 
out for myself, to discuss the question of the indissolu- 
bility of marriage ; or to point out the noble action of 
the Church in past ages, in defence of the sanctity of this 
" great sacrament." I will merely say, Watch the effects 
of a wider departure from the principle of the Catholic 
Church, in these days of the latter part of the nine- 
teenth century, and judge if they are reassuring. Is it 
not a fact that, since the newspapers began to teem with 
public scandals connected with the new Divorce Courts, 
thoughtful' men shudder at the signs of the times, and 
earnestly pray that the ever-swelling tide of evil, which 
threatens the purity of the family, and the stability of 
the state, may in some way or other be checked or 
averted? At any rate, it seems to me, that it is only 
when men look in the direction of communism and social- 
ism and free-love, as the goal of progress, that they can de- 
rive satisfaction from the heavings, and throbbings, and 



208 



EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 



feverish restlessness, which, at the present time, charac- 
terize the movements of the masses of humanity. I have 
said enough to show that the Old Church is true to her 
principles of social order ; and that Catholic Christianity 
in opposing " Godless Education," and Divorce, is in no 
way the enemy of real progress. 



AS OPPOSED TO EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 209 



CHAPTEE X. 

Catholic Christianity as Opposed to Emotional 
Christianity. 

ALTHOUGH I have given all the attention possible 
to express my convictions on the present state of 
the controversy between Catholic Christianity and the 
fashionable infidel theories of the day, I feel, on looking 
back on what I have written, certain misgivings, which 
affect not only the hurried style of the composition, but 
even the matter itself, as it may be judged by others. I 
have tried to set the objections of unbelief not only 
fairly, but even strongly before the public ; and sensible 
men who may look over what I have written may say — 
" Is it prudent to enlighten the public generally on such 
points ; may it not disturb simple Faith ?" 

Well, I can only say, as the result of my experience in 
this colony, and I suppose the views of colonists on such 
subjects are the same over the world, that there is not the 
least danger in thoroughly ventilating thoughts and no- 
tions that have found their way early into the minds of 
precocious youth, and that have been seething and fester- 
ing there throughout their lifetime. It is an undeniable 
fact that want of reverence for the traditions of the past 
is a marked feature in all new countries. A colonial 
child will laugh at stories of legendary lore that edify the 
developed minds of people who have lived in an atmos- 
phere of the Faith. Colonists, as a rule, are sharp in 
picking up fragments of heterogeneous knowledge, and 



210 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



whether it concerns holy things or the opposite, morality 
or scandal, which minds regulated by the staid and sober 
habits of quiet home dare not mention, they are full of 
eagerness to know all about them. 

I heard an old lady, the other day, tell the advice she 
received from her grandfather, when she was a child in 
England. " My Dear, whenever you chance to pick up a 
bit of scandal in the streets, drop it in the sewer, for it is 
a filthy thing, and not fit to enter into a decent house." 
Such morality would, I fear, be somewhat beyond the 
mark of a young colonist of either sex. They might 
marvel at such prim and high-stilted and old-fashioned 
conceits ; but inwardly conclude that these old people 
knew very little of the ways of the present world. " To 
know something about everything, and to pick up every 
fragment of knowledge that comes in your way" — seems 
to be the maxim of those who from early life, have to 
think, and take care of themselves. 

Young people here and in America, and the new con- 
tinent in the far East, and wherever the old civilization 
of Catholic Europe is grafted on a new stem, speak with 
a confidence and an assurance about all the " ologies" that 
would fill their ancestors with amazement, not unmixed 
with grave anxieties. Though their intimate acquaintance 
with the secret things of nature would be startling to 
European civilization, their dogmatism on Eeligious sub- 
jects goes far beyond the widest experience of the 
" Household of the Faith " in older countries. The total 
disregard of traditional landmarks, and the almost com- 
plete ignorance of sound principles of Theology, launches 
them out fearlessly on the wide sea of religious specula- 
tion ; and urges them to seize with avidity every morsel 
and scrap of floating opinion that may present itself to 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



211 



their notice, in the shape of paragraphs of every new pub- 
lication, that comes within their reach. Novelty has a 
special charm for them ; and the last outcome of Free- 
thought, which would sink and perish unheeded under 
the surging ideas of new theories at home, is rare food 
for the bold explorers of Greater Britain beyond the 
ocean. 

It seems to me that the only safe way to satisfy this 
passionate desire for daring discovery is to meet it bravely 
and openly ; and this plan I have endeavored to pursue 
throughout my book. I have invariably put the objec- 
tions of unbelief as strongly as I could, more forcibly 
perhaps than they would present themselves to persons 
almost totally ignorant of the important consequences 
involved. 

It is a mistake to say to a precocious and inquisitive 
child, — " I cannot now explain to you fully what your 
question means ; by and by, when you have studied and 
learned more, I will tell you all." Prudence of this kind 
is apt to be mistaken for ignorance, or stupid fear. Im- 
petuous youth will not be checked in its investigations 
by answers of this kind ; and the colonial youth, who is 
all on fire with the ardor of hungry and unsatisfied long- 
ings after the mysterious, will plunge recklessly into 
depths from which he may never afterwards arise. 

I remember once hearing of a smart young fellow, in 
this part of the world, who having his curiosity excited 
by something he had heard of the Transit of Venus, 
pressed his father with question after question, till the 
old man was feign to escape the importunity of the eager 
inquirer, by telling him, that in the course of time, his 
difficulties would be satisfied. The youngster was equal 
to the occasion, and in true new-world bluntness, replied, 



212 CATHOLIC CHEISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 



" If you know nothing about it, buy a fellow some books 
that will explain it." 

If what I have said in justification of stating openly 
the objections of Infidel writers, and the peculiarities of 
the countries, where my experience has been gleaned, for 
more than a quarter of a century, be not fully understood 
in the land of my birth, I am convinced by the experi- 
ence of old friends in that dear old land, remarkable for 
their prudence and foresight and the profitable use of 
this experience, that the time is fast drawing nigh, when 
the open attacks upon revealed religion must be met even 
there in the same spirit of open and unreserved satisfac- 
tion. 

There is another objection which far more strongly 
suggests itself to me. Having put the arguments of un- 
belief plainly and forcibly, have I answered them with 
that fulness, and that amount of learning which the sub- 
ject demands ? I will at once confess that, though I pre- 
pared myself by careful study, and extensive reading, to 
meet these difficulties at every point, I have felt most 
keenly the want of that acuteness and dialectical skill 
which the mind acquires by constant practice and polish 
in the schools, and which is altogether beyond the reach 
of a missionary Bishop. The answers were clear enough 
to my mind, even from the recollection of the treatises 
which I studied in college, more than thirty years ago ; 
but to put them with the precision and power of a master 
in theology was something I could not attempt. 

It seemed to me therefore, that my best efforts should 
be directed to give the answers in a plain and popular 
form ; and this I have tried to do to the extent of my 
ability. No doubt I have done it often clumsily, and 
repeated in one form or another the same answer. But I 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



213 



satisfied my misgivings on this point, by the consider- 
ation that my book was meant for readers, who, under 
the influence of the spirit of the age, would merely 
glance over its pages; and that if what I said in one 
chapter failed to arrest attention, the same explanation 
of the difficulty, in another form, might be successful. 

Hence I eschewed anything like the assumption of 
profound theological learning ; and put my trust in my 
own honesty of purpose, and the good-will of my read- 
ers, and most of all, in the blessing and grace of God, 
which can give a sort of sacramental efficacy to the 
simplest materials, which are devoted to promote His 
honor and glory. The most striking conversions that 
I have met with in the course of my experience, have 
been due, under God, not to what the world would call 
wisdom, but to the simplicity of an earnest desire " to 
hear the word of God and keep it." I have known 
cases in which, not a learned discourse and cogent argu- 
ment, but some of the most ordinary devotions, and 
ceremonies of the Church, the incense offered at the 
Altar, the Rosary, and the invocation of the Holy name 
of Jesus, were the key that unlocked hearts long closed 
to the impulse of Divine grace. I must only hope and 
pray that a similar blessing will be conferred on many 
who read this book, with the intention of acquiring, by 
its means, some useful knowledge about Catholic Chris- 
tianity. 

It will be seen at once, by those who turn over its 
pages, that I have studiously avoided the old paths of 
polemical disputation, so long used in the contest with 
religious sects. All that can be said to guide readers 
through these devious and ever divergent ways, has been 
said over and over again ; no doubt with a certain amount 



214 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 

of satisfaction to the sapient writers, but only to weary 
and distract those who studied their writings, in the hope 
of meeting with explanations that would clear away their 
doubts. He who would imagine to find "the narrow 
way that leads to life," by comparing disputation with 
disputation, and attempting to reconcile facts of history 
with their distortions, and truth with its infinite mis- 
representations, would end his weary life, as it was be- 
gun, in utter bewilderment ; and be tempted, often in its 
course, to give up the task in despair, and fling himself 
hopelessly into the rapidly flowing current of total in- 
difference. 

There is another difficulty, and as it is of considerable 
importance, and naturally arises from what I have said 
in preceding chapters, I will dwell upon it more at 
length. It may be said, " You have labored hard to draw 
a charming picture of Catholic Christianity as a whole ; 
you have shown how all the mysteries of this Religion, 
and its sacramental system, and its worship, emanate 
from, and circle round the Incarnation. There is no 
doubt that a Religion, so united in all its parts, bearing 
its supernatural fruits to every soul that desires them, 
making us one with our Divine Redeemer, and sharers 
individually in His plentiful Redemption, is in itself 
transcendentally beautiful ; and, if it could be received 
with entire faith and confidently relied on, quite calculated 
to satisfy the longings of every heart that desires life 
everlasting. But, at the same time, you have warned us 
repeatedly against a religion of feeling, that gratifies our 
emotional and sentimental tendencies. If we accept your 
warning, everything you have urged, and it may be 
exaggerated in its favor, should naturally make us dis- 
trustful. May we not, if we yield to its attractions, be 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



215 



caught by some potent spell, that, by its fascinations, 
will effectually blind us to the simple and unaffected 
charms of pure unalloyed truth ? 

" In other forms of Christianity, we can discover beau- 
ties that fill the soul with satisfaction, and give us peace, 
and an assurance of salvation, and promise to make us feel 
even sensibly the abiding presence within us of the Holy 
Spirit of God. In these we find no elaborate ritual ; we 
are taught indeed to unite in prayer, and to help each 
other by mutual fervor : but the prayers are in a language 
we understand, and there is no formality about them. 
The minister who conducts a form of worship of this 
kind yields to the impulsive gushings of his own heart, 
and we sweetly communing with him, are borne, by his 
glowing language, on the wings of Divine love, till, soar- 
ing far above the things of earth, we feel safe and secured 
from sin and temptation in the bosom of God. Here the 
end at which your religion aims in its material sacraments 
and outward ceremonies, is attained at once. Surely 
simplicity marks all the ways of God ; and the Religion 
that attains its chief end, union of the soul with its 
Creator and Redeemer, is more likely to be acceptable to 
Him, than one that appeals to us through every organ of 
sense, and requires so much labor and instruction to 
understand it. And yet you will say that this emotional 
and delightful Religion of feeling is not real, that it 
mocks and deceives us. Is it not wiser then to cling to 
the simple Religion of nature — to bask in the sunshine, 
to gaze on the loveliness of the varied landscape, to inhale 
the sweet odors of the wild flowers, to drink in the har- 
mony of the rippling stream, and the song ever fresh and 
ever new of the world of life around us, till we ' feel 
good all over ? ' Here at least we are safe, there is noth- 



216 CATHOLIC CHEISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 



ing to delude us, and the mind, as well as the body, is 
rendered healthy and vigorous." 

On this point, as in the case of every objection, I have 
put the difficulty as forcibly as I could. And what is my 
answer ? Just as this sensuous enjoyment of nature leads 
to nothing but the animal gratification of those who 
either have never learned, or having learned, disdain " to 
rise through nature up to nature's God ;" so do these 
emotional forms of Christian worship, which I have just 
described, end in meaningless or fatal delusion. They 
deaden the higher faculties of beings created to know and 
serve their Creator, and leave them in a state of almost 
hopeless languor and profound indifference to duty. These 
gushing extempore prayers, and the emotions they excite, 
and this seeking after sensible indications of the presence 
of the Holy Spirit, while they satisfy the longings of 
pious natures, too often betray their most earnest and 
zealous votaries into the hands of their worst spiritual 
enemies. 

The essential difference between these forms of Chris- 
tianity and Catholicity consists in this, that, whereas, 
while Catholic worship leads us, through sense, to com- 
mune with God, presents to us something real, and care- 
fully fixes our thoughts and feelings on this reality ; this 
religion of emotion ends, as it begins, in mere sensibility, 
and vapid piety aimless and objectless. Feeling is the 
"be-all and the end-all" of this imaginary fervor, and 
with the subsidence of feeling, all the seeming ardor in 
the service of God fades away. 

I firmly believe that there is no more dangerous illu- 
sion, and no greater enemy to the Religion established by 
Christ, than a creed that encourages spasmodic piety of 
this kind. The worst of it is, that it involves the souls 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



217 



who trust in it in the gravest dangers. If it be true, as 
the Wise Man tells us, that " no man knoweth whether he 
be worthy of love or hatred " (Ecclesiastes ix. 1), and if 
St. Paul warns his obedient children of Philippi, "to 
work out their salvation with fear and trembling" 
(Philipp. ii. 12), there must, on the very face of it, be 
danger to the soul in any form of religion that promises 
its adherents a positive and sensible assurance of the cer- 
tainty of their salvation. 

I do not doubt for a moment that souls glowing with 
apparent fervor, may, and do feel, something like a super- 
natural emotion that gives peace to the soul. But there 
is a peace that is not real peace according to God. " Satan 
himself transformeth himself into an angel of light" 
(2 Cor. ii. 14). The Catholic Church has ever set her 
face against delusions of this kind ; and her most distin- 
guished saints have laid down rules for the guidance of 
earnest Christians, in that most difficult sort of super- 
natural knowledge which, according to St. Paul, ranks 
next after the power of performing miracles and uttering 
prophecies, — "the discerning of spirits" (1 Cor. xii. 10). 
What can be a more dangerous delusion for a Christian, 
who believes that at the day of judgment he must render 
an account for every idle word (Matt. xii. 36), than to 
imagine that, in a moment of what may be, if not a dia- 
bolical illusion, at least a certain pitch of nervous excite- 
ment, all his sins are cancelled? What can be more 
opposed to this pleasing conviction than the words of our 
Divine Lord, constantly preached by the Catholic Church, 
alike to the just and sinners, — " unless you do penance, 
you shall all perish" (Luke xiii. 3). 

But I am not arguing with Christians who are non- 
Catholics ; I am defending Catholic Christianity against 



218 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 

the unbeliever, who fancies he discovers in Catholic doc- 
trine, an enchanting solace as false and delusive as that 
which he sees in other forms of Christianity. 

" This is your grand comfort," he says, " that through 
union with Christ in the sacraments you find peace of 
soul. Other Christians not only promise, but give a pos- 
itive assurance of this peace, without any sacraments at 
all : and if this peace be a delusion in one case, why is it 
not one in the Catholic Church also ?" And he goes far- 
ther, and, here is the very point of his argument, " We 
know and are certain," he says, " that all this so-called 
peace in those who say they feel an assurance and sensible 
conviction of its attainment, is a mere exaggeration of 
feeling. We know that the greatest reprobates, whose 
hearts are wedded to iniquity of every kind, can lash 
themselves into this state of emotional fervor, and see 
visions, and hear the voice of what they call the Spirit of 
God assuring them of pardon. They are clearly mis- 
taken ; and so may the pious Catholic also be deceived ; 
and therefore this Religion, which you have described as 
so beautiful and charming, may be found after all to be a 
mere idle dream, which, when thoroughly sifted by sound 
reason, contains within it not one grain of substance. 55 

I have already said, in noticing this difficulty, that the 
object before the Catholic, when he feels himself carried 
away by feelings of fervor, is something real, fixed, and 
definite. He cannot be deceived, because " he is taught 
of God. 55 The living and speaking voice of God reaches 
him through the infallible Church, assuring him that he 
may aspire to a perfect union with God in the Blessed 
Sacrament. He may indeed be deceived in all that re- 
gards his own dispositions; he may not have "proved 
himself 55 sufficiently. Notwithstanding the help and light 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



219 



afforded him in the holy tribunal of penance, his soul 
may still harbor secret attachments to sin. Though he 
knows perfectly well that the occasions of sin must be 
cut off, and the injury done to the neighbor in character 
or property rectified, before he dares to approach the 
holy table, still he may hope with confidence propor- 
tioned to the earnestness of his purpose of amendment, 
and to the judgment of his confessor in the reality of 
that earnestness, that he does not deceive himself. 

The Catholic Church teaches, as the very A. B. C. of 
her doctrine of the possibility of being " made partakers 
of the Divine nature," what St. Peter so plainly sets be- 
fore us, when he points out " the very great and precious 
promises of this supernatural union" (2 Pet. i. 4-10). 
That those who aspire to it, " must fly from the corrup- 
tion of that concupiscence which is in the world." Not 
Faith alone will suffice, according to this Apostle, but the 
earnest Christian must labor diligently "to join with 
Faith, virtue, and with virtue knowledge," — that is to 
say the real knowledge of self — " and the abstinence, and 
patience, and piety, and charity that spring, through 
God's grace, from this saving knowledge." Without this 
labor and diligence, though his heart might feel all aglow 
with the ecstasies of Divine love, he would be, as St. 
Peter says, " blind and groping, forgetting his old sins," 
and destitute of that deep sense of his own unworthiness, 
which leads those who truly love the Saviour, and desire 
to be made one with Him, " to labor the more, that by 
good works, they make their calling and election sure." 
When union with God in the Holy Communion is pre- 
ceded by this proving of one's self, then indeed the 
Catholic " doing these things," may hope " not again to 
sin at any time" (2 Pet. i. 10). 



220 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 



There is a wide difference here between Catholic Chris- 
tianity and that intimate persuasion, and sensible con- 
viction of imputative justification, which was the bright 
discovery of the unfortunate Luther, when he had grown 
tired of good works, and weary of his solemn vows, and 
felt himself impelled by his strong passions to cast away 
the anchor of Christian hope, to turn his back on the 
light of true Faith, and steer forth on the wide waters of 
Free-thought. 

God help those who set up his grand theory, so charm- 
ing to perverse nature, before the hard teaching of Christ 
and His Apostles ; and so refuse to bear the cross daily 
after their Divine Master, nor see to do themselves that 
salutary violence, which is necessary for the attainment 
of the kingdom of Heaven (Matt. xi. 12). 

I have said that there is no more dangerous illusion, 
nor a greater enemy to Catholic Christianity than this 
sentimental religion of mere subjective feeling. No 
more dangerous illusion, because, founded on the fanciful 
and prejudiced interpretation of some texts of Scripture, 
it may be, and often is, a real temptation of the devil. 
Dangerous too, because it seems to satisfy the souls of 
earnest men and women, who mistake its unwholesome 
and frothy excitement, for the substantial " Bread of 
life." Still more dangerous, because it puffs up the soul 
with presumptuous pride, and, while whetting the ap- 
petite for sensual enjoyment, by developing a highly 
wrought sensibility, it impels its unfortunate votaries 
into the very whirlpools and rapids of sore tempta- 
tion. 

There are, I am convinced, thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of earnest and sincere Christians, outside the Catho- 
lic Church, who, fed on this garbage, have gradually lost 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



221 



all taste for the Heavenly food of the Blessed Eucharist, 
become utterly sensual, " perceive not the things that are 
of the Spirit of God 55 (1 Cor. ii. 14), and learn to deride 
the great gift as " a fond delusion, 95 and a thing to be dis- 
carded as foolish and unreal. Most of these certainly 
would be saints, in the true acceptation of the term, and 
as it is known in the Church of God, if they had learned 
betimes to be guided in all humility and docility by the 
fond mother of all the living, whom our Divine Lord 
has left us to teach what we must do to please Him. 

And what greater enemy to Catholic Christianity can 
there be than this flaunting, presumptuous, self -justifying 
and Pharisaical piety, which, without mission from above, 
rudely intrudes itself on public notice, and fancies that it 
is only doing the work of the meek and lowly Jesus, when 
it flings aside the control of ordinary prudence, and 
challenges vice and worldliness, in " the very torrent, 
tempest and whirlwind of its passion "? 

Such " out of season" cant must often lead to profanity. 
I remember a fact bearing on this matter which may set 
my meaning in a better light. When the soldiers were 
blockaded by the Boers at Durban, and all Grahamstown 
was in a state of intense excitement as to whether the 
men of the Twenty-seventh Regiment, who had to a man 
volunteered, and gone to the relief of their comrades, 
would arrive in time to save them, a gentleman con- 
nected intimately with many military friends then in 
extreme peril, was met by a sanctimonious old charac- 
ter not favorably known in the city, who accosted him 
with the words — " Have you heard the joyful news ?" 
— " No, what ?" exclaimed the gentleman, from whom I 
heard the incident. — " The Lord came down on earth to 
save sinners, and you among the number." I leave my 



222 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 



readers to imagine the disgust excited by this ill-timed 
announcement. 

When men of the world, who have renounced Revealed 
religion, identify this bold and pretentious mode of piety 
with Christianity, it is no wonder they are led to bate 
and abominate Christianity itself. They forget or ignore 
all they may have heard of that higher form of belief, 
which is ever calm in Faith, strong in Hope, and Majes- 
tic in its noble and self-sacrificing charity, and which, 
endeavoring to screen its charms from public gaze, re- 
serves all its beauty for the eyes of the great King. They 
feel stung to the height of indignation at this sancti- 
monious wordiness and hypocrisy, and deeming all Chris- 
tian forms of religion the same, they prefer to commune 
with the poetry of nature, than to bow down and worship 
with men who can picture to themselves a God who 
could be imposed upon by this outward show of unreal 
and hollow professions of piety. It is not surprising, 
under these circumstances, that many highly-gifted men 
and women, deceived as to the true character of pure 
Christianity, and putting this empty sentimentalism in 
its place, have assailed it with the most bitter invective. 

I may not quote IngersolPs " vision of judgment it 
is too irreverent, as expressed in his own words. But 
from the idea which I will give, it will be seen at once, 
that the power of men of this stamp to upheave Chris- 
tianity in the minds of some, by force of ridicule, arises 
from the complete misapprehension they have wilfully or 
foolishly formed of the reality. 

"Smith," the hard-working laboring man, honest, 
sober, and industrious, and devotedly attached to his wife 
and family, is ignominiously cast into outer darkness 
because he has not been a reader and distributor of tracts, 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



223 



and is not familiar with, sanctimonious and unctuous 
phrases. While the other " Smith/ 3 who has robbed his 
employers, coveted, and carried off his neighbor's wife, 
and softly yielded to temptation by " trying fire" and 
other nefarious practices, is raised to the clouds and 
gifted "with a harp," because he had cleverly succeeded 
during life in veiling his iniquity by assiduous attention 
to prayer-meetings, and other such practices, as have, in 
these days in which we live, marked the career of some 
of the most notorious swindlers and forgers, and robbers 
of the poor, that ever disgraced the fair name of a nation 
boasting of its righteousness. 

If Charles Dickens exalts bonhomie and natural vir- 
tue above the supernatural, it is only because his strong 
prejudices prevented his acute perception from examin- 
ing into the real nature of Catholic Christianity. Had 
he allowed his honest nature to yield to the sweet attrac- 
tions of Divine grace, he would have developed in all 
likelihood into the beau-ideal of a Catholic gentleman. 
No doubt he had glimpses of the truth ; the purity of 
his conceptions of female excellence, as shown in his 
heroines, like those of the poet Longfellow, could only 
spring from a sort of intuition of human nature, exalted 
above ordinary weaknesses by the supernatural gift of 
God. Dickens has severely lashed that form of Chris- 
tianity which I have just noted, and though he made 
bitter enemies by the severity of his chastisement, he has 
done much to check the morbid admiration for "pious" 
criminals that was, in his time, fast becoming fashion- 
able. 

They who have read the account of the " two interest- 
ing penitents," given in the 33d chapter of " David Cop- 
perfield," cannot but loathe and detest the caricature of 



224 CATHOLIC CHKISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 

real piety exhibited in Uriah Heep and Mr. Littimer. 
How exquisite is the satire on wretched hypocrisy, con- 
veyed in the parting words of the latter to the magistrates 
visiting the prison : " Gentlemen, I wish you a good 
day, and hoping you and your families will also see your 
wickedness, and amend " ! Or in the words of Heep 
about his mother — " I am afraid she ain't safe, immort- 
ally safe, sir. I should wish mother to be got into my 
state, I wish mother had come here. It would be better 
for everybody, if they got took up, and was brought 
here" ! 

This is hard hitting ; but, as the clever writer says, — 
" Perhaps it is a good thing to have an unsound hobby 
ridden hard ; for it's the sooner ridden to death." Of 
course Dickens caricatures this mock Christianity, as he 
does the other nuisances of society: but ridicule is a 
powerful weapon, when wielded by a master-hand, and 
applied to real evils — the best remedy perhaps, and the 
most appreciated in this unthinking age. 

They who know anything of Catholic Christianity, will 
never charge it with infusing into its penitents, self- 
justification, forgetfulness of one's own sins, and affected 
pity for the sins of others. The attacks of such as these, 
who have studied even hurriedly our books of instruc- 
tion, and got to know the rudiments of Catholic morality 
as regards repentance, will be directed against another 
point altogether. Our system of repentance, this rigid 
adherence to the teaching of St. Peter, as quoted above, 
is according to their notions, much too strict. Confession 
is held to be " a cruel butchery of the soul," and peni- 
tential works and austerities, misplaced and profitless 
severity towards self. Even if they catch a glimpse of 
the beauty of that union with God, which is the object 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



225 



of our Faith, and Hope, and Charity, they exclaim 
against the great price which we require, in the securing 
of so splendid a privilege. Catholic doctrine is, in their 
view, unnaturally harsh and repulsive : it interferes with 
the comforts of life ; it disturbs the peace of families. 

" Why should religion," as I once heard a good-natured 
and kind-hearted English lady say, " have anything to do 
with one's regular meals, upsetting and disturbing them ?" 
"Why," again, it is said, " should young persons leave 
the bright world, and shut themselves up in convents ?" 
This hard Religion turns people against their own dearest 
friends, and extinguishes charity. And, after all, what 
is Religion without charity ? Is it not, as St. Paul says 
— " as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" ? (1 Cor. xiii, 

I will answer these and cognate charges, in the words 
of Cardinal Manning, " The love of the neighbor springs 
from the love of God; the love of kindred, the love of 
friends, the love of ail that are about us is a part of the 
love of God. As radiance is a part of light, so the love 
of mankind flows in a direct stream from the love of 
God. Therefore aversion from creatures" (the perfection 
of Christianity according to Catholic teaching) " means 
this, that there are no undue attachments, no depend- 
encies, no bondage to creatures, even to the purest and 
the best. The soul is in perfect liberty, because it is 
united with God ; it loves every one, each in his measure, 
and fulfils every duty of charity with a delicate tender- 
ness greater by far than the love of those who love God 
less. In the measure in which we love God, in that 
measure we shall have more heartfelt love to all that are 
about us. A father will be a better father, and a mother 
a better mother ; son and daughter will be better chil- 



226 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO 



dren ; they will love each other more, and friends will 
love one another more in the measure in which they love 
God more. Therefore aversion from creatures means a 
rational and measured love which sets us free from ail 
undue attachments." 

If this were more insisted on in practice outside the 
Catholic Church, Infidels would have far less to say 
against any form of Christianity, than unfortunately they 
can urge at present, when the doctrines of free-love, and 
other similar fashionable theories, are spreading so gen- 
erally. An appeal to the instincts of fallen human nature 
is a sorry argument against the Divine religion, which 
our Lord has delivered to us. Though He has been 
pleased, through our senses, to draw us to Himself, and 
enable us to feel the regenerating influence of His 
presence amongst us, He has not shrunk, through 
delicacy for our natural feelings, from declaring that He 
has not come to send peace, according to our notions, 
upon the earth ; but what is, on the contrary, directly 
opposed to these feelings, " I came not to send peace, but 
the sword " (Matt. x. 34). 

When Bishop Colenso propounded the new heresy, 
that the natives of South Africa were not to be disturbed 
in their gross habits of polygamy, and pushed the argu- 
mentum ad hominem to the utmost by arguing that we 
were not to shock the feelings of the natives, by re- 
quiring from them an act of injustice, according to their 
ideas, in compelling them to put away all their wives but 
one, he forgot here, as in many of his other natural views 
of Religion, that the Divine message, and not a human 
interpretation of it, is necessary to salvation. "When he 
pleaded for his proteges, with more than his ordinary 
eloquence and persuasive powers, he seemed not to bear 



EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



22? 



in mind, that our Divine Lord had declared " that a 
man's enemies should, under His law, be they of his own 
household " (Matt, x. 36), and that sacrifices far greater, 
than separation from many wives, were actually made by 
the two and a half millions, who in the first three cent 
uries of persecution, in Home alone, sealed their violent 
rending from worldly honor and distinction, and home 
and all its endearments, by the testimony of their blood. 

The subjects treated of in this chapter seem to me to 
require as full an account of the Catholic doctrine of 
justification, as can be given in a work of this kind ; it 
will therefore form the subject of the next chapter. 



228 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



CHAPTER XI. 



Catholic Christianity, Justification and Sanctity. 



IT the last chapter, I endeavored, as briefly as possible, 



to combat that false notion of unbelief, which assumes 
that Catholic Christianity teaches, that the greatest repro- 
bates may, in a moment, by an inward sensible convic- 
tion, be transformed into " children of light.' 5 This 
involves a grave error not nnmixed with truth, and 
requires that I should, plainly and in simple language, 
unfold the Catholic doctrine of justification. My best 
efforts will be directed to avoid theological technicalities, 
and to popularize, as far as I can, this profound and 
mysterious subject, which, for the last three hundred 
years, has exercised the minds of the most able scholars 
in Divinity, both Catholic and Protestant. 

There is something shocking to natural reason in the 
notion, that a vile ruffian, steeped in crime, may be sud- 
denly transformed into a saint ; that the murderer, rob- 
ber, and adulterer may, in a moment, shine before men 
like the perfection of angelic purity; that, to quote 
Dickens again, the Fagins, and Keeps, and Pecksniffs of 
society, may, suddenly and without any external signs of 
repentance and change of heart, rise to the moral dignity 
of self-sacrificing, simple, candid natures, like Nelly or 
Little Dorrit. 

Yet there have been such transformations. The sinful 
woman of the city looked into the face of our Divine 
Lord, wept, and was forgiven. The robber on the cross 




JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 229 



was no sooner touched with pity for the suffering Saviour 
beside him, than he heard words of comfort, seldom 
vouchsafed to the most holy on earth. Paul, while thirst 
ing for the blood of the disciples of Jesus, was changed 
into " a vessel of election." David, burdened with sins 
that cry to heaven for vengeance, said, in the sincerity of 
his heart, " I have sinned," and forthwith became dear 
to the heart of God, and the model of all true penitents, 
Nay more than this, for these are extraordinary cases, an 
act of perfect contrition will, according co Catholic the- 
ology, secure, through the superabundant merits of Christ, 
the immediate pardon of the greatest sinner. 

Where then is the difference between Catholic teach- 
ing on this point of justification, and that instantaneous 
change of a reprobate into a fully developed rose of sanc- 
tity, that excites the disgust and scorn of the children of 
unbelief ? It is to be found mainly in that plain teach- 
ing of St. Peter (2 Pet. i.) already quoted in the last 
chapter. "We are changed indeed in a moment — " made 
partakers of the Divine nature ; 5? for the communication 
of a vital principle cannot be considered other than as 
consummated in a single moment. 

Grievous sin is called mortal, because it kills the soul ; 
and the change from death to life, when one is really 
converted by the grace of God, must be, from the very 
nature of the case, an instantaneous change. One cannot 
be dead and living at the same moment. But there is a 
vast difference between the first germ of life, and that 
further development in virtue, knowledge, abstinence, 
patience, piety, and brotherly love and charity, of which 
the Apostle speaks, before there can be an entire transi- 
tion from the life of the flesh to the life of the spirit. 

It is something monstrous, not only to the view of 



230 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



natural intelligence, but to sound Christian theology, to 
behold the scandalous sinner of to-day, a full-fledged 
saint to-morrow, to hear the brawler, or the drunkard, or 
the profligate, become at once, not a mere "babe of 
grace, 5 ' but a preacher, and a teacher, and an exhorter, 
" forgetting his being purged from his old sins," and, 
like Uriah Heep, only anxious about the sins of others. 
There is something sickening and revolting in the spec- 
tacle of a wretch, who should, like Magdalene, be bathing 
the feet of the merciful Saviour with the tears of com- 
punction, or, like David, supplicating the Divine mercy 
from the depths of his humiliation, standing boldly for- 
ward on a platform, and in the presence of his late asso 
ciates in every enormity, recounting " his experiences," 
and deploring their blindness. 

Such a disgusting spectacle is altogether unknown in 
the Catholic Church. He who has given scandal, should 
indeed repair the scandal, by suffering, under wise direc- 
tion, the light of his altered life to shine, in modesty, and 
gravity, and persevering prayer, and the avoidance of the 
occasions of his former sins, so that they, who had been 
witnesses of his folly, may glorify God, in his change of 
heart. But the less he has to say about himself the bet- 
ter. The public confession of his evil deeds is unneces- 
sary; and would, even if they were not detailed in all 
their enormity, be scarcely edifying ; and the manifesta- 
tion of " the very great and precious" favor accorded to 
him by the Divine mercy, might flatter a secret pride, 
that would soon extinguish the small ray of Divine light, 
which had communicated a feeble life to his guilty con- 
science. 

In the early days of the Church, penitents often con- 
fessed their sins in public ; but this was only under the 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 



231 



direction of a prudent priest, duly appointed to the office 
of determining when this part of the satisfaction for sin 
was likely to conduce to the spiritual benefit of the public 
penitents in the congregation. We know, from Socrates 
and Sozomen, the historians of the primitive ages of the 
Church, that, through scandals, the practice was discon- 
tinued. What I have said will enable my readers more 
clearly to understand the difference between Catholic be- 
lief and practice concerning justification, and the notions 
prevalent amongst certain Christian sects, which excite 
the bitter hostility of unbelievers. 

The Council of Trent describes justification to be an 
exaltation from the state of sinfulness to that of grace, 
and of adoption of the children of God — "A state, 
which," as Dr. Moehler says (Symbolism, p. 146), " is in 
a negative sense, that of remission of sin, and in a posi- 
tive sense, that of sanctification." 

These two states are often confounded by Christians, 
who do not accept the teaching of the Catholic Church : 
and this confusion has led to the misconception by unbe- 
lievers, and abuse of Catholic doctrine. By the grace of 
God, purchased for us through the sufferings and death 
of our Divine Eedeemer, the truly penitent obtain par- 
don, are made just, and this instantaneously, so the light 
is admitted in the room of darkness, and death gives way 
before life. But something more takes place, that, ordi- 
narily speaking, requires time ; and this is the transfusion 
of the Spirit of Christ into the soul of the penitent, in 
other words, the development of the germ of the new 
life, communicated instantaneously by the act of justifi- 
cation. 

To express this more plainly, and in a way in which 
the sense will be obvious to a passing reader, I would 



232 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



say, that, by justification, life is communicated to one 
that was dead : but this little spark of life, like the first 
faint indications of breathing in one recovering from a 
trance, or rescued, at the last moment, from a watery 
grave, must be carefully nursed into vigorous life, before 
it is capable of anything that can indicate sanctification. 
If, in addition to this, we picture to ourselves a certain 
state of soul that precedes the instantaneous act of com- 
municating spiritual life, a certain " susceptibility," as 
Dr. Moehler expresses it, " dependent on a series of pre- 
liminary, mutually qualifying emotions in the inner 
man," we shall then fully understand justification in the 
Catholic sense, and as opposed to that extraordinary 
transition from turpitude to sanctity, which excites the 
ridicule and contempt of unbelievers. 

Before man can be adopted as a child of God, there 
must be a gradual preparation, a certain disposition on 
the part of the sinner to avail himself of the great gift, 
when it is offered. " From the period," says the learned 
Doctor, already quoted, " wherein our faculties of dis- 
cernment have clung with undoubting firmness to re- 
vealed truths, the struggling soul moves on through fear 
and hope, through grief and intuitive love, through 
struggle and victory, up to that happy moment, when 
all its better energies, hitherto dissipated, unite under 
the impulse of a higher power, for obtaining a decisive 
conquest ; where, by the full infusion of the Holy Spirit, 
the union with Christ is consummated, and we belong 
wholly to Him, and He again joyfully recognizes Him- 
self in us" (Symbolism, p. 149). 

It is not that, by this mental process, and this gradually 
developed susceptibility, we merit the grace of justifica- 
tion, That would be Pelagianism, a rank heresy con- 



JUSTIFICATION" AND SANCTITY. 



233 



demned in the days of St. Augustine, by the Catholic 
Church. 

Perhaps what I have said about the sudden raising 
from death to life, may render what I have just ex- 
plained, somewhat obscure. But the meaning is soon 
clear. Though the soul be dead in a spiritual sense, yet 
the grace of God may be active within it ; moving and 
exciting the tardy death-like will to something like 
exertion. God can do nothing in the soul of the sinner, 
till the human will, under the influence of preventing 
grace, begins to believe, and fear, and then hope, and 
love, and thus co-operate with the impulses that indicate 
the advent of returning life. This is what we under- 
stand by that susceptibility or fitness for the precious 
gift of justification. 

But, at the same time, this crowning of the good work, 
begun by Grace, is purely gratuitous on the part of God. 
Man, however readily he may co-operate with these first 
impressions of Grace, cannot, on this account^ be said to 
merit or deserve this grace : a certain state of preparation 
for a thing must not be confounded with the cause of 
that thing itself. The signal-man, and others preparing 
actively for the arrival of the train, have no influence 
whatever in causing its approach. 

If what I have explained be clearly understood, there 
will be so much the less difficulty for any one of ordinary 
intelligence in mastering what is further necessary to be 
said, in order to show the difference between Catholic 
justification, and the notions of Christian sects, which are 
wrongly ascribed by unbelievers to the Church of God. 
The work of justification proceeds gradually in the soul 
of the converted and justified ; because, after sin is for- 
given, there remains a perverse sensuality. This con- 



234 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



eupiscence, as it is called, or stimulus to sin, is not by 
any means a sin in itself. It will no doubt lead us to 
sin, if we follow its suggestions ; but as long as we re- 
sist, it cannot injure us ; nor separate us from the new 
life obtained in justification. On the contrary, if we re- 
sist it victoriously, by co-operating with the grace of God, 
it will render us more pleasing in His sight, and add to 
our crown hereafter. 

But it is only by determined and persevering conflict 
with this temptation to evil, that the fruits of sanctification 
begin to manifest themselves. These happy effects are 
seen and felt in the sincere and earnest Christian ; first 
by himself, in the gradual decrease of the influence of this 
concupiscence ; and, in course of time, by those about 
him, in the steady calmness, and absence of anything 
like singularity in the service of God. The more his 
soul is at peace with God, the stronger does the penitent 
feel, by God's sanctifying grace, in the possession of his 
new life ; the more instinctively does he shrink from 
public notice ; and the less does he estimate, as something 
to be exhibited, his newly acquired virtue. " By the 
grace of God," he says with the Apostle, " I am what I 
am." — " I am not conscious to myself of any fault, but in 
that I am not justified." 

There is a prevalent idea among unbelievers, not 
exactly that pious Catholics do not trust in the merits of 
their Bedeemer, and that they confide solely in their own 
good works (it is reserved for our separated brethren 
to entertain these charitable views), but that these pious 
Catholics must necessarily be proud and Pharisaical, and 
always thanking God " that they are not like the rest of 
men." 

How little they know of true sanctity, who fancy that 



JUSTIFICATION" AN'D SANCTITY. 



235 



the Holy Catholic Church can reverence the blatant 
egotism and effusive piety of these "brands saved from 
the fire," that love to make their sentimental piety fizz 
and blaze before the public ; and attribute to her the 
development of such specimens of outrageous hypocrisy? 

Cardinal Manning gives a far different notion of such 
sanctity, when he says — "AH our conformity to the 
Sacred Heart is the work of God in us : and He perfects 
it in measure and degree, as He sees it to be for our 
good. He humbles us by making us wait. AYe desire 
to be sanctified with great speed, that we may be de- 
livered from the bondage of our temptations. We pray 
to be saints out of love to ourselves ; and if we were 
made saints to-day, we might fall to-morrow, as the 
angels did by self -contemplation. . . . Neither you nor 
I are saints now, nor, in this world perhaps, ever will be. 
And yet some of you may be. There may be some poor 
humble soul who hears me who thinks that he is the 
worst of sinners ; there may be some poor woman, who 
says that 6 no soul was ever farther from being a saint 
than I am ; ' and yet it may be that these two are nearer 
than we are in their conformity to the humility of Jesus, 
for ' the last shall be first and the first last.' But of one 
thing I am sure — that if there be such they will be the 
least conscious of it ; and if anybody here thinks well of 
himself, and that he is in the way to be a saint, he is far 
— perhaps the farthest — from it." 

To mark more distinctly the essential difference between 
the Catholic doctrine of justification, and that which is 
often mistaken for it, I may be allowed briefly to go to 
the very root of the matter. 

According to the Formulary of Concord, in which 
Lutherans and Calvinists coincide, — " Justification sigiri- 



236 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



fies the declaring any one just, on account of the justice 
of Christ, which is by God imputed to Faith; and it 
expressly declares our justice is not of us. So that while ; 
according to Catholic doctrine, Christ, by justification 
stamps inwardly and outwardly His living impress on 
the believer, in such a way that the latter, though feeble 
and imperfect, becomes gradually a real copy of the type, 
on the other hand, according to the Protestant doctrine, 
Christ casts on the believer His shadow only, under 
which his continued sinfulness is merely not observed by 
God. 

There is in this view no real change ; the sinner re- 
mains truly a sinner unto death. Only in some extra- 
ordinary way, the Omniscient is deceived, and regards 
the sinner, whose heart is unchanged, as if he were a 
saint. Faith, according to them, constitutes the only 
decisive distinction between sinners in the eyes of God. 
When the sinner believes, and as long as he believes that 
the merits of Christ are imputed to him, he is at once 
all holy. 

There is therefore, in this view, no essential difference 
between the converted and the unconverted ; the same 
moral being remains ; and the effects of penance, restitu- 
tion, avoidance of the occasion of sin, unfeigned humility 
are all self-delusion. 

This of course explains how in a moment, the greatest 
reprobate becomes a saint, and may show off, before 
admiring crowds, the bright garment which hides all his 
iniquity. It is almost amusing, if the subject were not 
in itself so serious, to note how far even the most dis- 
tinguished among the so-called Eeformers, pushed this 
point. Melancthon, wishing to prove that a Saint Francis, 
or some other of the most exalted servants of God is not 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 



237 



in reality holy, triumphantly puts the question — " Do 
not they all seek their own interest V As if there were 
no meaning in the words of the Apostle, that " Charity" — 
the chief test of true sanctity — " seeketh not her own 
and that a perfect follower of Our Divine Lord, always 
seeks his own interest, and not the glory of his Divine 
Master ! 

Men of this school see nothing but sin in concupiscence. 
But if concupiscence be bravely resisted, where is the sin ? 
And, if it be successful in its assaults, what becomes of 
the saint ? It must never be forgotten by the Infidels 
who assail the Catholic doctrine on this point, and fancy 
that we Catholics are no better than those who believe in 
instantaneous sanctification, that the Catholic Church, 
above all things, insists on a radical internal change. 
Here, in the words of Dr. Moehler, is the essential 
difference, so clear and distinct, that it cannot possibly 
be mistaken. When the Protestant believes that the 
merits of Christ are imputed to him, " at this point of 
his spiritual life, he can calmly sit down, and without 
advancing a step farther, be assured of eternal felicity, — 
while the Catholic can obtain the forgiveness of his sins, 
only when he abandons them." 

I would not care to be obliged to defend the Protestant 
position against the assaults of unbelief ; for however 
potently, if I were a Protestant, I might urge abstract 
principles, and attempt to overwhelm my opponents with 
scholastic reasoning, founded on the effects of original 
sin, I should feel at once, that the reasoning of common- 
sense was decidedly against me, in attempting to main- 
tain that a reprobate might become a saint, without a real 
change of heart and a complete reformation. I might as 
well hope to convince a sober-minded reasoner of the ex- 



238 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



istence of such a phenomenon in the moral world, as a 
flying ox or a conscientious parrot. 

The chief cause of this great difference between Catho- 
lics and Protestants, may be traced to the erroneous 
notions of the latter concerning original sin and its con- 
sequences. According to them, the ravages of the sin 
of our first parents are so frightful in their posterity, 
that they cannot be cured even in the regenerated. In- 
stead of holding the belief of the Catholic Church, that 
the inclination of the will to evil, left in us by the dis- 
turbing influence of the primeval act of disobedience, is 
not sin, except where this inclination or solicitation is 
entertained with full consciousness, and consented to by 
the will, Lutherans and Calvinists assert, that this 
solicitation, even when resisted, is in itself sinful. 

This appears so monstrous to unbelievers, that if with 
Ingersoll, they do not cry out against "the infamy of the 
Atonement," they express the notion of the injustice in- 
volved in this inheritance of evil, independent of in- 
dividual will, in the strongest terms. " The visiting on 
Adam's descendants," says Herbert Spencer, in the Jan- 
uary, 1884, number of the Nineteenth Century, " through 
hundreds of generations, dreadful penalties for a small 
transgression, which they did not commit; and the 
effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was 
perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a 
propitiatory victim ; are modes of action, which, as- 
cribed to a human ruler, would call forth expressions of 
abhorrence. 5 ' 

Strong as this language is, it seems in some sort justi- 
fied, if real Catholic Christianity maintains, with the lead- 
ing Reformers, that personal sinfulness does not consist in 
a deliberate perversion of the will, but in something posi- 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 



239 



tively evil in itself outside the will, that is transmitted. 
If the consequence of original sin, as a positive evil, be 
in the soul, notwithstanding the determined action of the 
will in resisting it, and this evil, thus sternly combated 
by the will of the individual, exposes him to certain 
damnation, then we must say, that he is condemned with- 
out just cause ; and that he is lost, not through his own 
fault, but by a fatal necessity. 

But Catholic Christianity has never imagined, or taught 
anything of this kind. The doctrine of the Church on 
original sin is simply this. Adam by his sin lost the 
supernatural gifts of holiness and original justice, which 
God, in pure gratuitous mercy, had bestowed upon him 
for transmission to his posterity. 

In other words, the father of the human race, by his 
sin of disobedience, rejected that original justice, which 
involved privileges of the highest order, to which he had 
no natural claim : and we, as members of the human 
family, of which he was the head, bear the consequences 
of that rejection. We are not implicated in his personal 
sin, in his ambition, pride, and disobedience ; but we are 
implicated in that special guilt of his sin, in which he 
could, and did act as head of the human family. He sin- 
fully rejected the supernatural gifts, to which his nature 
had no claim : and we, as united to him, have shared in 
this rejection of original grace. Original sin in us does 
not simply mean the loss of what was so precious, but it 
means self -rejection of these gifts, in as much as this rejec- 
tion was willed by our human nature in Adam, with the 
will of Adam. It is not a personal sin, for our personal 
will had no part in it ; it is the sin of our nature, as our 
nature is one with that of Adam. It is a necessary con- 
sequence of the sinful breaking of the supernatural order 



240 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 



established by God, in which sin we share, inasmuch as 
we form one moral body, that is one family with him. 

Of course no illustration can make clear a mystery, and 
this transmission of original sin is one of these incompre- 
hensible truths, which form the entirety of our heaven- 
born and mysterious Religion. But, to a certain extent, 
it may be illustrated thus. A subject of a great monarch 
finds favor in the eyes of his master, and is in conse- 
quence raised to a Lordship and privileges of the highest 
rank. Had he persevered in his fidelity, he would have 
transmitted these honors to his children. But he re- 
belled, and they, disinherited like himself, bore the con- 
sequences of his guilt. The illustration fails however, 
because under original sin, the children of Adam share, 
not only in his misfortune, but his guilt. That guilt con- 
sists in this, that the}' have lost favor in the eyes of God. 
He loves them, it is true, as His intelligent creatures, 
made to His image : but He does not love them as beings 
worthy of His gratuitous love and supernatural blessed- 
ness ; for they have lost in losing original justice, the 
likeness to Him, in which their nature was created. 

It is not true to say, with Spencer and his school, that 
God imputes to us the personal sin of another ; it is 
rather the effect of this sin, the wilful rejection, made 
by human nature, in its representative, of original justice 
and its glorious privileges. There is no injustice here ; 
men do not lose anything which their nature requires. 
As Dr. Moehler says, " "What nature without supernatural 
grace, would have been, it is now, in consequence of the 
self-incurred loss of that Divine light." 

The great difficulty, in the whole question, is this, to 
explain how the wound inflicted on human nature, has 
reached the immortal spirit : how the souls of each of us, 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 241 



created by God, at their union with the germ of the body 
transmitted by nature, feel the noble faculty of the will 
weakened and perverted. This is of Catholic and Divine 
Faith, for the Council of Trent has declared, under the 
infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost, that by original 
dn and its transmission, the will of every human being 
is weakened, and inclined to evil " viribus attenuatum et 
inelinatum" (Concil. Trid., sess. vi. cap. v.). But the 
same council has also defined it, as a dogma of Faith, that 
Free-will is by no means extinguished in us — " liberum 
arhitrium minime extinctum" Hence it follows, that 
although we cannot, without the grace, communicated to 
us through Jesus Christ, produce any act in itself, and by 
itself acceptable to God, and anywise perfect, every moral 
act of ours is not necessarily sinful. 

This doctrine differs toio coelo from the notions of the 
Reformers, that a positive evil power, independent of onr 
will, has been transmitted to us, and that a fallen man is 
all evil. 

There is something good in human nature, no matter 
how fallen, corrupted even by actual and personal sin : 
and there is nothing, in Catholic doctrine, which does not 
cheer and encourage every benevolent and noble-minded 
Christian, who, through many self-sacrifices, devotes his 
best energies to find out the latent spark of natural good- 
ness, and to endeavor, by kind words and generous deeds 
to fan it into vigorous activity. 

Those w T ho, like Ingersoll and Spencer, seek to drag 
down the justice of God as shown in Catholic teaching, 
below the level of that which is human, only exhibit, in 
their showy theories, the littleness and short-sightedness 
of even great minds, when they attempt, without the aid 
of revealed Religion, to speculate on the infinite attri- 



242 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



butes of God. The great being " who has made all things 
well/' is the Master of His own gifts ; so that not even 
His goodness, not to speak of His justice, can be im- 
pugned ; since the gifts He confided to the keeping of 
Free-will enlightened by Grace, were infinitely beyond 
what human nature at its best, could have ever merited. 

How completely ignorant are they of the loving con- 
descension of our Divine Saviour, who see in His self- 
imposed sacrifice for our sakes, and Infinite pity for a 
fallen race, nothing but an " infamy," and consequences 
abhorrent to our natural ideas of justice ! Verily the poor 
ignorant Catholic, who cannot read, but has learned to 
say his beads, while thinking over the sufferings and 
death of his Saviour, and has thereby trained himself to 
bear poverty and afflictions of every kind, not only with 
patience, but with joy for Christ's sake, is before God 
and His angels, far higher in the scale of humanity, than 
the proud philosopher, who exclaims against the folly of 
the Divine appointments. Those Christians who will not 
hear the Church, and are doomed to follow the first rebels 
to her authority, through all the weary mazes of error, 
and doubt, and inconsistency, have inherited something 
far worse, in its personal effects, than Original sin : for 
their obstinacy in clinging to these wearying by-roads 
and circuitous paths, and so wasting their lives in wander- 
ing round and round in endless perplexity, deprives them 
of anything like real Faith and peace of mind. It may 
be a sort of diversion to them, when they have abandoned 
the narrow way that leads to life, with its modes of wor- 
ship adapted to our needs, and its sacraments, like so 
many refreshing fountains, and its " Bread of life" to sus- 
tain them, to forget for a moment their anxieties in ex- 
hilarating sentimentalism and emotional fervor. 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 



243 



But if they prefer these enjoyments of mistaken piety, 
to the path trod by our Divine Lord Himself, because it 
is steep and arduous, rough and thorny, and irritating to 
human pride and sensuality, in the very simplicity of its 
refreshments, and its occasional austerities, they may hear 
one day the saddening words, — " Amen I say to you, you 
have received your reward " (Matt. vi. 2). Yes, they may 
well imagine it said to them: you experienced much 
satisfaction in your own ways of devotion; you were 
raised above the earth, when certain chords of feeling 
were touched that gratified self-love; in the delightful 
fervor, that thrilled sensibly through your whole being, 
as you joined in the gushing prayer, you felt the touch 
of the spirit that pleased you with its w T hisperings of 
false peace. But in all this " you have not walked ac- 
cording to the will of God" (Wisdom vi. 5). In these ex- 
ercises of seeming piety, as in the fasts of the Jewish 
people, "your own will is found" (Isaias lviii, 3). There 
was another way — "the holy way" — a straight way so 
adapted to the wants of humanity, that " fools could not 
err therein" (Isaias xxxv. 8) ; but this you abandoned to 
please your own caprice, " therefore you have erred." 
No doubt it does seem more delightful, " nicer" to use a 
common expression, to certain individuals of the senti- 
mental class, to revel in various forms of new-fangled 
piety, than to adhere to the ways sanctioned by the prac- 
tice of primitive Christianity. 

There is, beyond question, a more highly spiced charm 
in listening to one's self, or dear friends, pouring out the 
thoughts and feelings of passionate excitement, than join- 
ing with the poor round the altar or kneeling humbly and 
alone at the tribunal of penance. But the great question 
is what is the form of worship with which God is pleased. 



244 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, 



These considerations however will probably have less 
effect than mere human considerations, on the admirers 
of emotional Christianity. If they heard what calm and 
sensible men think and say of extempore prayer, and its 
accompaniments, their intense admiration for these spir- 
itual enjoyments might be rudely chilled. 

I have heard it said myself, and from my knowledge 
and experience of human nature, I believe there is a deal 
of sound truth in the observation, — " These people, who 
are ready at any moment to engage in public extempore 
prayer, must be rarely gifted, if this exuberance of gush- 
ing piety is real ; and if, on the other hand, they are only 
acting, they must be the most consummate hypocrites." 

I know that it is hard at all times to fix the thoughts 
on God. As Father Faber says, " Often when we place 
ourselves in the Divine presence, and try to pray with 
attention and devotion, it seems as if a fountain of dis- 
tracting thoughts began to play in the centre of our 
being." Those who disdain to use prayers carefully pre- 
pared in humble and respectf ul language, and sanctioned 
by long and general use, must often commit themselves, 
under the influence of excitement, to words that are 
hardly wise. It is to be feared too, that in " wrestling 
with the Spirit of God " they may betray a boldness and 
irreverence, which they would not dare to use in address- 
ing an equal or a superior among their fellow-men. And 
suppose the feelings of fervor and the unction will not 
come at the precise moment that they are wanted, must 
they be worked up for the occasion ? With what a sense of 
unreality does not the bare thought of such acting affect 
our judgment of the pious practices of those, who are 
supposed to be superior " to the rest of men," in the 
earnestness of their devotions! "Sing praises to our 



JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTITY. 



245 



God," — says the fervent Psalmist, but lie adds — " Sing 
ye wisely.' 5 

I have touched on this matter, because in pointing out 
the difference between Catholic Christianity and the Re- 
ligion of sentimental emotion, I thought it necessary to 
indicate a remarkable feature in the latter, which is ab- 
horrent to Catholic piety. If unbelievers are tempted to 
use very strong words, in their denunciation of the lan- 
guage used at Camp-meetings, and Revivals, and public 
prayer-meetings ; and not from what they believe them- 
selves about our Divine Lord, but from what they know 
of Christian belief in His Divinity, express their horror 
at what Dickens has called " the most impious and awful 
familiarity" of those, who often rant on these occasions, 
they should not charge the Catholic Church with these 
excesses. 

While Catholics respect the motives and intentions of 
those who piously join in this kind of popular devotion, 
they are grieved and pained at the mockery, and ridicule, 
and contempt, which exhibitions of this sort excite in the 
minds of the enemies of the Christian religion, for every 
worship that bears the name of Christian. 

In the next chapter, I will say something about the 
gloominess and misery supposed by unbelievers to be in- 
timately and necessarily connected with Catholic Chris- 
tianity 



246 CATHOLIC 



CHRISTIANITY 



UN TING ED BY THE 



CHAPTER XII. 



Catholic Christianity Untinged by the Gloom of 
Predestination. 

/~\NE of the most common arguments of Infidels 



against revealed Religion is that it casts a gloom 
over the innocent enjoyments of the ]3resent life; and 
discourages men from the discharge of the duties which 
they owe to society. " If," they say, " happiness in a 
future state is i the one thing necessary,' and this happi- 
ness is to be secured only by self-denial, and making our- 
selves miserable, what interest can a thorough believer 
take in the affairs of the world ? And, as it is quite cer- 
tain, that men are irresistibly impelled by their reason, 
and the noblest and most elevating feelings of human 
nature, to seek their own happiness, and promote that of 
their fellows, whatever opposes these principles is evi- 
dently beneath the notice of cultured humanity." 

In this respect, Catholic Christianity is the chief object 
of attack. Other Christian systems establish a friendly 
alliance with the ordinary pursuits of the world. There 
is nothing in the most rigid forms of Protestantism, that 
hinders one from seeking wealth, and honor, and the 
prizes set before us, in the beautiful dwelling where we 
find ourselves. "Whereas " the strict Catholic," they say, 
" is impelled, by the rule of his Churchy to fast and pray, 
and wear himself out in acts of penance and mortifica- 
tion ; and, if he happens to have a fair share of the good 
things of this world, he is bound to sacrifice them to the 




GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



247 



objects of doubtful charity, which, surround him on every 
side." And, pressing the argument to its extreme point, 
they urge — " Look at Catholics who aim at what they 
foolishly call the perfect life, and you will find that, 
wherever they find it possible, they shut themselves up 
in Religious houses, and pass their days in wretched 
silence and seclusion, wear poor clothes, use the plainest 
food, and submit to the drudgery of a Rule, that must, 
after a time, become intolerable, in the strictness of its 
minute observances. What fools these Catholics must 
be, who allow themselves to labor under such stupid de- 
lusions !" 

I remember once, when I was a boy, hearing of an 
English Protestant traveller in Ireland, who was strong 
in these views, and who fairly nonplussed the poor driver 
of the jaunting-car, by his stern dogmatism on the Re- 
ligious life. They were passing a celebrated Carthusian 
monastery, and the driver, hoping to entertain, and per- 
haps edify his rather taciturn " fare," began to detail to 
him the privations and austerities of the monks — " They 
are wonderful people, sir ; they rise at midnight to sing 
their prayers." — " More fools they." — " They never touch 
meat." — " More fools they." — " They fast two Lents in 
the year." — " More fools they." And so it went on, till 
the driver, at last, aggravated beyond measure, by what 
he considered the want of religion of the other, exclaimed 
— " Why then, sir, do you mean to go to Heaven at all ?" 
" Yes, my good fellow, certainly," replied the other, u but 
not by making myself a ridiculous fool." I could not 
help thinking even then, that it was no sign of folly, to 
renounce all things and to follow Christ for the sake of 
Heaven. I have long ago learned, as a truth beyond 
doubt, that they are the wisest and best of the human 



248 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UNTINGED BY THE 

family, "to whom it is given" to correspond with the 
grace of a Divine vocation. 

It does not follow that, because there are many who 
heed the Divine call addressed to the young man who had 
large possessions, — " leave all and follow me," and who 
thus enter on the rough and narrow way of perfection, 
that this mode of life is set before the great body of 
earnest and thoughtful Catholics. 

I have already pointed out, in the fifth chapter, what 
is meant by a vocation to the perfect life, how rare it is, 
and how severely it is tested. This at once cuts away the 
very root of that fallacy, so constantly urged by the lead- 
ers of " progress," that, if the Catholic religion had its 
full way, this fair world would soon be changed into a 
gloomy waste, and that the human race would perish. 

But let it be observed, Marriage is "a great sacra- 
ment," honored by Christ's first miracle, and a figure of 
the admirable union that exists between our Divine 
Lord and His mystic spouse, the Church. The great 
majority of Catholic Christians — a majority so immeas- 
urably beyond the number of those who are called to 
the higher life, that the latter, though a numerous class, 
is scarcely perceptible in the multitude of believers — 
the many, can not only save their souls by gratifying 
a taste for wide intercourse by living in society, and 
mixing in the busy pursuits of the world; but they 
could not, in the ordinary ways of Providence, be saved 
at all, unless they followed the bent of this inclina- 
tion. Very many who have lived happily in the married 
state, brought up children in the fear and love of God, 
are now, according to the belief of the Church, brightly 
conspicuous in the mighty host of the white-robed, who 
enjoy the beatific vision. Every treasure born of them, 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



249 



which they have carefully preserved in innocence and 
purity, or which, like the mother of St. Augustine, they 
have, by their prayers and good example, rescued from 
the fangs of the wicked serpent, is another fair gem in 
their crown of everlasting glory. God often blesses them 
here below with happiness, far beyond the luxurious 
dreams of pleasure, which mock the desires of the un- 
godly ; and fills their souls with comfort, in proportion 
to their fidelity in dispensing His bounty, a comfort 
which is altogether unknown to the weary pursuers of 
sensuous gratification. 

What folly it is for worldly-minded men and women, 
the wretched slaves of ever-changing fashions, and 
tyrannous obligations of human respect, to sneer at the 
delights of generous, and unaffected, and simple-minded 
virtue ! What do they know T of the pure and unadul- 
terated and ever fresh enjoyments of self-sacrifice, who 
shrink with terror from every work of charity that 
necessitates discomfort, and scatters their largesses, not 
for God's sake, but to ward off vexatious importunity, or 
to gratify the suggestions of ever-craving pride? If 
they could only for a moment pierce, with steady glance, 
the mists of prejudice, and obtain one view of that joy, 
which a merciful God often bestows, even in this life, on 
those who love Him above all things, and their neighbor 
for His sake, they would be impelled to tear from their 
brows the fading flowers of earthly pleasure, and trample 
in the dust those perishable nothings, for which they 
have bartered their eternal welfare. 

When pious Catholics, who have learned betimes to 
walk with God, either in the Religious state, or abroad 
among men, are faithful to the graces so lavishly be- 
stowed upon them, they realize something of that pure 



250 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UOTINGED BY THE 

happiness, which must have flooded the souls of our first 
parents, when they heard the voice of God speaking 
gently to them "in the paradise of pleasure." 

But these things are foolishness to those who have 
blunted their appetites on the gross things of earth, and 
are filled and surfeited with this unwholesome food. 
They do not understand the ways of God, and it is 
therefore useless to dwell further on this point in at- 
tempting to reason with them. I will only say that there 
is no place in this weary world more like Heaven, than 
those happy homes, where God, and all that concerns His 
service, honor, and glory, are the main objects of daily 
life. " Be not solicitous," says our Divine Lord, " about 
what you shall eat or drink, or wherewith shall you be 
clothed. For after all these do the heathens seek. Seek 
first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these 
things shall be added unto you" (Matt. vi. 31-33). 

It is a great mistake to imagine that they who set their 
hearts on " the one thing necessary," and " place their 
treasure in heaven," are thereby unfitted to attend to 
their duties in society. Every state has its fixed duties. 
Those of the professional man, of the merchant, of the 
landed proprietor, and of the laborer, — of the poor as well 
as the rich, are clearly laid down in our books of instruc- 
tion, and form the subject of continual sermons. 

Idleness has ever been regarded as a crime in the 
Church of God. All Catholics must labor diligently to 
fit themselves, to the best of their abilities, for the faith- 
ful discharge of their several employments. It was 
always a maxim, even amongst the Contemplative Re- 
ligious orders, that " he who works, prays." It is only 
solicitude, over-anxiety, heathenish forgetfulness of God 
and His Providence^ that is condemned. If men will 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



251 



neglect God, and trust entirely in the power of their own 
hands, and never ask His blessing on their labors, who 
alone can give the increase, they are, according to the 
teaching of the Catholic Church, the real " fools, 5 ' who 
despise "the one thing necessary," and are entirely 
taken up with those worthless trifles, that must soon be 
abandoned forever. There is no such thing, in Catholic 
teaching or practice, as sitting down on the road that 
leads to heaven, and abandoning one's self to blind fate 
and the gloomy horrors of Predestination. 

The Catholic who would say to himself " Either I am 
one of the Elect, or of the Reprobate ; God who knows 
all things knows with absolute certainty whether I shall 
be saved or lost, and therefore it is useless for me to 
trouble myself about doing good or avoiding evil," would, 
he fully understands, be acting as foolishly as the fanatic 
Turk, or the man perishing with hunger, who would not 
stretch forth his hand to take the food that lay within his 
reach. " Allah sees my fate," says the blind zealot, who 
rushes madly upon the bayonet of his adversary : " God 
must feed me or I die," may say indeed, according to 
the principles of his creed, many a misguided Christian ; 
but the least instructed Catholic cannot entertain, for an 
instant, the thought of so great an absurdity. He has 
been taught, it is true, that " whether he eats or drinks, 
or whatever else he does, he must do all things for the 
glory of God " (1 Cor. x. 31) ; but while he thus puts 
himself in the way of receiving the Divine blessing, on 
even the most ordinary of his actions, he must attend to 
what he is about ; and use his best efforts to be a faith- 
ful servant. "He who soweth in blessings, shall also 
reap of blessings" (2. Cor. ix. 6). And therefore he is 
bound to do the work before him, " not with sadness, or 



252 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IHSTTINGED BY THE 



of necessity, 55 like those who have no hope in a kind and 
ever-watchful Providence ; but cheerfully, because he is 
assured that the duty, be it ever so difficult, and sur- 
rounded with vexatious trials, has been appointed for 
him by one, who loves the cheerful giver and the con- 
tented mind, and who has chosen, by this path, to lead 
him to his eternal rest. 

I never yet knew a pious Catholic who was not, as 
a rule, bright and cheery. The expression, so familiar 
to all Catholics, ignorant as well as learned — " It is the 
will of God 55 is never associated with gloomy thoughts. 
On the contrary, this outburst of consoling Faith and 
Hope, which springing from the heart, finds utterance 
on the faltering tongue, lightens the load that presses 
heavy upon us at times. 

God be praised !*in long-suffering and afflicted Ireland, 
the Faith of which the words " Blessed be the Holy will 
of God 55 is the natural outcome, is too deeply fixed, by 
pious mothers in the hearts of their children, ever to be 
eradicated. Nay rather, it seems to sink deeper with every 
blow to long-cherished hopes, till it has grown into the 
very instincts of the people. We Irish are never gloomy ; 
and we have to thank Faith, as well as natural tempera- 
ment, for so great a blessing. Our priests and Religious, 
when the hard work of the Confessional, or ministering to 
the sick, or the works of mercy in the school, or the 
homes of the poor, is finished for the day, can be as 
joyous, and as free from care as the children who cried 
out, in the presence of the Saviour, — " Hosannah in the 
highest. 55 

We Catholics know nothing practically of the grim 
Calvinistic piety, which, instead of finding in the belief 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



253 



of God's Providence, a cheering light in the midst of 
darkness and sorrow — 

" Like moonlight on a troubled sea 
Brightening the storm it cannot calm" 

invites rather in the soul of the puritan a religious gloom, 
like the dark mist, as Homer describes it, " brooding on 
the abyss and hatching the tempest, 55 of rebellious excite- 
ment and passionate resistance to the Divine appoint- 
ments. "We are happily ignorant, as well in doctrine, as 
in practice, of anything like dismal forebodings of this 
kind. This bete noire of sectarian Christianity, so well 
depicted by Dickens in the character of Mrs. Cienham, — 
this nightmare of Calvinism, never disturbs even our 
dreams. 

" The world," says this wretched incarnation of ultra- 
puritanism, shut up in the airless room, with its bier- 
like sofa, and other funereal details, " has narrowed to these 
dimensions" — this to one who felt he was her only son, 
and who had just returned after a long absence. " It is 
well for me that I never set heart upon its hollow vani- 
ties. I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here. 
The Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all that." 
" Great need," continues the clever and observant writer, 
" had this rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled 
in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, ven- 
geance, and destruction, floating through the sable clouds. 
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors was a 
prayer too poor in spirit for her. ' Smite Thou my 
debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them : do Thou, as I 
would do, and Thou shalt have my worship ; ' this was 
the impious tower of stone she built up to scale Heaven." 

Such sentiments actually make one's blood run cold ; 



254 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UNTINGED BY THE 

and I am sure Catholics must marvel whence such a pic- 
ture of mistaken religion could possibly be drawn. This 
keen observer of the stage of life had however distinct 
visions of actors like Mrs. Clenham. They grow, by a 
sort of necessity, from the incubus of Predestination. 

Damned for all eternity, hopelessly crushed forever 
under the heel of pitiless destiny, is the stern decree which, 
creeping out of the dark mists of error, weighs down every 
joyous impulse in the soul of the believer in such mon- 
strous aberrations. Natural religion, if it has done much 
evil to Faith, has at least almost banished this hideous 
phantom from any practical influence over the affairs of 
life. Puritans now, exultingly quote the words com- 
monly attributed to their pet-idol, Cromwell, and sing, 
" Put your trust in God, my boys ; but keep your powder 
dry." Still the principles of Calvin are so intimately 
involved in the belief, that Christ died only for the elect, 
and that the mass of humanity are foredoomed to eternal 
misery, despite their best efforts, that it is no wonder, un- 
believers, deriving their knowledge of Christianity only 
from formulas, and confessions, and other authentic docu- 
ments, take the information obtained from these sources, 
as the firm ground of their worst assaults on the Chris- 
tian religion. 

According to Calvin, " Predestination is that eternal 
decree of God, whereby He hath determined what the 
fate of every man should be. For not to the same destiny 
are all created : for to some is allotted eternal life ; to 
others eternal damnation. According as a man is made 
for one end or the other, we call him predestined to life 
or death" (Calvin Instil, lib. iii. c. 21, n. 5, p. 337). 
" We assert that by an eternal and unchangeable decree, 
God hath determined whom He shall one day permit 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



255 



to have a share in eternal felicity, and whom He shall 
doom to destruction. In respect to the elect, this decree 
is founded on His unmerited mercy, without any regard 
to human weakness ; but those whom He delivers up to 
damnation, are, by a just and irreprehensible judgment 
excluded from all access to eternal life" (L. C, n. 7, p. 
339). 

Is it any wonder that, on the suppostion that this ap- 
palling doctrine is that of the Catholic Church, Infidels 
should rave against Christianity, and that Ingersoll and 
others of his school, should have expressed their hatred of 
the God of the Bible? 

It must be remembered, in connection with these stern 
decrees, that he who propounded them, and his followers 
hold, as a fixed principle, that there is no such thing as 
free-will ; and consequently, that they who are doomed 
by the eternal and inexorable decree, are lost forever, 
without any fault that can in justice be attributed to them. 

But Calvin w T ent farther than this, and maintained that, 
though Faith is a gift of God's mercy, yet believers who 
are lost, are condemned, because God did not give them 
a real Faith. "He insinuated Himself into their souls 
under an apparent Faith, that He might render them 
more inexcusable" (p. 195). That is to say, he charges 
the Almighty with intentional deceit, that He may gratify 
the more thoroughly His awful vengeance. 

It would be altogether wonderful that a doctrine like 
this could have perverted the sound sense of Christians, 
did we not know, to what extremities men are driven, 
when they will not hear the great teacher, whom our Di- 
vine Lord has left to guide us in our perplexities, but are 
obliged, through some false principle or other, to adopt 
new and strange doctrines. 



256 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY U1STTINGED BY THE 



Astute, as was this leader of error, and warily on his 
guard to keep clear of the monstrous extremes of Luther, 
who maintained that Free-will, by the fall of man, was 
utterly destroyed, he is yet irresistibly led into the same 
abyss of blasphemy, when he asserts, that the faint modi- 
cum of co-operative power is completely overwhelmed 
by the invincible action of Divine grace. " When Divine 
grace knocks, the door must be opened : it works quite 
invincibly, and those who enter into life, are never so 
touched by it, as to yield voluntarily to its suggestions : 
it simply never touches them, but saves them in spite of 
themselves." 

How bright and clear and cheering is the Catholic 
doctrine compared with these wretched principles of de- 
spair, which trample out of the heart of man, the bare con- 
ception of anything like hope ! According to the Church, 
Divine grace, the seed of any merit worthy of the Divine 
acceptance, is indeed unmerited by man ; but it is freely 
offered, through the merits of Christ, to all men without 
exception ; and none are lost but those who freely or 
wilfully reject this redeeming aid (Concil. Trident., sess. 
vi. c. 2). If any one is lost, notwithstanding the means of 
salvation that God affords to every one, such a one cannot 
justly blame God, but only himself and his sins. Sin 
alone, voluntary sin, sin committed wilfully and know- 
ingly in the light of God's grace, is the only cause of 
exclusion from Heaven. !No one is a reprobate, but by 
his own most grievous fault. According to the Catholic 
Church, the goodness of God precedes any hopeful move- 
ment of the soul, and gives to it a first grace, a purely 
gratuitous and unmerited supernatural impulse. 

This is called an actual grace. It does not justify the 
sinner ; but it will help him to perform good works, and 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION". 



257 



obtain further grace. He may reject it if he will ; if he 
does, it will be no benefit to him. If he turn it to good 
account, by his free co-operation, it will obtain more 
grace, and dispose him to obtain the free gift of justifica- 
tion ; and by co-operating and working with this, rising 
from virtue to virtue, repairing the evil effects of sin, 
avoiding its occasions, and the like, the penitent will at 
last arrive, by a gradual process, to sanctification, and life 
everlasting. Here all is hopeful ; there is no place for 
desponding gloom. 

The sinner who is moved to say, like the publican, 
" God be merciful to me," who, like the prodigal, feels 
weary of sin, and thinks of returning to the kindest and 
best of fathers, or like the man who, on the brink of an 
abyss, is warned in time by some hairbreadth escape, 
and the nearness of some terrible accident, already feels 
in these impulses, the voice of God inviting him to re- 
pentance. Let him only freely yield to the impulse, and 
he has already made the first step towards salvation. 

But it may be asked is there not in the Catholic Church 
also a doctrine of Predestination ? Tes, truly there is of 
the good who are saved. God foresees their co-operation, 
and final perseverance, and because it is His grace alone 
that has wrought this mercy, because, although they 
could have resisted, He foresaw that they would not re- 
sist, their salvation may be said to have been predestined ; 
for God not only foresaw this happiness in store for 
them, but actually effected it without constraining their 
liberty. 

But, according to Catholic theology, God cannot be 
rightly said to have predestined the Reprobate. He 
foresees indeed their doom ; but, instead of effecting it, 
He does everything, consistent with the free-will of the 



258 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UNTINGED BY THE 



sinner, to avert it. He cannot be said therefore to will 
their condemnation, and, by willing, to bring it about, 
because He does not produce their evil works; on the 
contrary He gives them every help to avoid prevarica- 
tions. If they are lost, they are lost through their own 
fault, and not by virtue of God's eternal fore-knowledge 
and predestination. 

It may easily be inferred, from this explanation of 
the Catholic doctrine of Predestination, how wide of 
the mark are all the shafts directed by the sneers, and 
wit, and ridicule of unbelief against the justice and 
goodness of God, as represented to us in revealed Re- 
ligion. Catholics do not believe that any soul is pre- 
destined to be lost, or that God causes any man to fall 
into sin ; such notions we condemn as impious and 
blasphemous. God indeed foresees that certain men will 
abuse His graces, and their own free-will. He cannot 
consistently, with man's noble gift of freedom, force 
any one to do what is right ; but " God tempteth no 
man" (James i. 13). He saves those whom He pleases ; 
and those who, in His infinite mercy, are saved, must at- 
tribute this crowning grace to His gratuitous goodness, 
more than to any merit of theirs. But condemnation is 
a punishment, and can only be inflicted on one who is 
guilty ; and therefore it cannot be said, with anything 
like a shadow of truth, that He predestines the Reprobate 
to Hell. His foreknowledge has no influence whatever 
on their free choice. The unfortunate wretch who, in 
the misery of despair, is about to take his own life, knows 
well, that he may, if he pleases, cast away from him the 
weapon of destruction, and not seal his fate forever like 
the unhappy Judas. " God will render to every one ac- 
cording to his works" (Rom. ii. G). None will be lost 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



259 



but the wicked ; and the wicked may, even " at the elev- 
enth hour," repair the follies and idleness and utter 
worthlessness of a life of sin, by turning with all their 
heart to Him who is not willing " that any should perish," 
but desires that all should return to penance (2 Pet. iii. 
9). 

Here, as I have said, there is no place for gloom or 
despair ; and the unfortunate Catholic, w T ho would aban- 
don hope, and consider himself predestined to eternal 
misery, must close his eyes to the light of truth, and be 
guilty of that terrible sin, which is but the coping-stone 
of his tower of iniquity, and invites the Divine wrath to 
burst upon it, like the dread lightning, — the sin against 
Hope, or distrust in the mercy of God, the greatest of 
all the Divine attributes. 

When Herbert Spencer says, in that article to which I 
have already alluded, that " a deity who, in early times, 
is represented as hardening men's hearts, so that they 
may commit punishable acts, and as employing a lying 
spirit to deceive them, comes, through a convenient ob- 
liviousness, to be thought of as an embodiment of the 
highest virtues," he is riding the hobby of religious Evo- 
lution to the last gasp. 

A child, well instructed in the Catechism, could tell 
this profound Philosopher, that there can be no contra- 
diction in the word of God. This child could further 
explain, to this eminent leader of Free-thought, that 
whatever seems to jar with the plain doctrine of God's 
love for the whole human race, and " who will have all 
men to be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4), must be understood in a 
sense consistent with this frequently repeated declaration 
of the Divine goodness. When God is said to darken 
the mind, and harden the heart of the obstinate sinner, 



260 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UNTINGED BY THE 



He does so, not by acting directly r , but indirectly, by 
permitting and not stopping those evils, which the will- 
fully obdurate sinner rashly courts, and from the fatal 
embrace of w T hich, God is bound, neither in justice nor 
in mercy, to tear him forcibly away. 

So much then for " the gloominess, and savage harsh- 
ness of revealed Religion," as it appears to its enemies. 
When men, like Ingersoll, heap up all the terrible things 
which are recorded in the Old Testament, as the means 
which God found necessary to check a perverse people, 
ever sliding back into the worst depths of corrupt Idola- 
try, and sums up, by calling the God of the Bible, " a 
fiend," and in the extremity of his hatred for the Being 
who has made him, turns lovingly to the God he imag- 
ines he finds in unconscious nature, he seems to forget 
that this Personification of amiability can be very wrath- 
ful at times. 

There are such things as earthquakes, and plagues, and 
inundations, suddenly sweeping away thousands of inno- 
cent with the guilty, and dreadful shipwrecks, wherein 
helpless infancy, and fond mothers, and brave men perish, 
with the ungodly, beneath the cruel waters. 

These cataclysms are of course, in his view, only the 
freaks of his charming and idolized mistress. And if 
she indulges in these sports, which he denounces as savage 
and undiscriminating, she cannot be " all his fancy j)ainted 
her." How much more wdse it would be for him, instead 
of stupidly fondling w T ith a thing without feeling or in- 
telligence, to turn to the great Being " who has made all 
things well," and who " is gracious, and true, and patient, 
and ordering all things in mercy" (Wisdom xv. 1), " be- 
cause He considereth the end of all things" (Job xxviii. 3). 

Perhaps with this key of the far-reaching knowledge of 



GLOOM OF PREDESTINATION. 



261 



God, he might, notwithstanding his "bitter prejudices, the 
offspring of narrow and short-sighted views of Provi- 
dence, be brought, like Voltaire, to see that there is some- 
thing after all in the consideration of final results. 

Men of the school of thought of the American Free- 
thinkers, are always harping on that newly-discovered prin- 
ciple of ethics, — that " Consequences determine the qual- 
ity of an action." Of course this is senseless as regards 
man's limited experience : as no individual can form the 
least idea of the ultimate consequences of his own acts. 
But applied to Him — in whose infinite knowledge the 
past, present, and future are as one, the consequences of 
what seem to us unmitigated afflictions, may be, as no 
doubt they are in the Christian view — sovereign acts dic- 
tated by Infinite mercy. He who has created all men, 
not merely to be rich, or happy, or prosperous in this 
world, but to be happy with Him for all eternity, and is 
Lord and Master of all things, knows how to dispose of 
His creatures, as will best accord with " the one thing 
necessary." 

If unbelievers would only carefully examine the his- 
tory of their own lives, they would find, in their experi- 
ence, much reason to admire the Infinite mercy of the 
Great God, " AVho endures with much patience vessels 
of wrath, fitted to destruction " (Rom, ix. 22). If the 
troubles and misfortunes, under which they may have 
groaned, and which probably excited much of their bit- 
terness against God and His revealed Eeligion, have opened 
their eyes ever so little to the vanity of those things which 
so quickly pass away: they might recognize, in these 
afflictions, not stern wrath, but gentle mercy. 

The subjects treated of in the last two chapters are of 
so much importance, to enable strangers to Catholic 



262 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY UNTINGED. 



Christianity to understand the spirit of this venerable 
creed, that I feel it almost necessary to add to them a 
short exposition of Divine grace, or that supernatural 
aid given to all men, through Jesus Christ, to enable them 
to attain to the end of then* being. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 263 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Catholic Christianity and Divine Grace. 



'HERE are certain lines laid down by Catholic 



teaching on the subject of Grace, which, when they 
are once distinguished, enable a fairly instructed Chris- 
tian to move safely, through the mazes and obscurities, 
which Theological discussion has heaped up around this 
important doctrine. 

In the first place, it must be always borne in mind, that 
Grace is not merited by any individual. It is a super- 
natural gift which God grants gratuitously, and in view 
of the merits of Jesus Christ, to intelligent creatures, in 
order to conduct them towards their eternal salvation. 

Natural endowments, such as good qualities of soul 
and body, an attractive exterior, winning manners, a just 
mind, a natural taste for virtue, an even temperament 
superior to blind passion, a fund of uprightness, and love 
for honesty and fair dealing, these are also gifts of God. 
For " every best and perfect gift is from above, coming 
down from the Father of lights" (James i. 17). 

But these good qualities are not, properly speakings 
what we understand by Graces. These gifts of nature 
are enjoyed by individuals, not because Jesus Christ has 
merited them for us, or because they have a necessary 
connection with the great end of our being. The helps 
which, for Christ's sake, are given us by God, to enable 
us to merit Heaven, — these divine impulses, or desires, 
or affections, which stir up the soul, and excite a real 




264 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 



interest in the better life beyond the grave, these are the 
gifts which we call by the name of Divine Grace. 

They are called Interior graces, to distinguish them 
from the Exterior aids which we derive from the lessons 
of the Gospel, from the preaching of these heavenly 
truths, and the example of those who make them the rule 
of their lives. 

It may be well to remark here, that Exterior Graces and 
natural gifts, such as those mentioned above, are the only 
Graces recognized by the Pelagian heretics, whose opin- 
ions on this subject were confuted by the great St. 
Augustine. I notice this particularly because, as we 
shall see presently, these errors lie at the root of all the 
misconceptions of the Catholic doctrine, which prevail 
at the present day. 

AVe know from our own experience, that Interior 
Graces, which inspire us with good thoughts, holy de- 
sires, and pious resolutions, do not come from ourselves ; 
the Catholic Church teaches that they come from God, 
and that they are antecedent to all merit on our part. 
"When we say with regard to an individual, that he is so 
good, that he ought to be a member of the true Church, 
we are, perhaps unconsciously, expressing opinions, at 
variance with Catholic teaching. JSTo one, however 
naturally gifted, however amiable, however admirable in 
natural goodness, can have the least right to the Interior 
Graces, which our Divine Lord has merited for us. A 
good Pagan, or a bad Christian, as far as strict rights are 
concerned, has just as much claim on the Divine bounty, 
for these interior movements inclining to holiness, as a 
dumb animal has to the gift of intelligence and speech. 
He might deserve from his fellow-men, like Aristides, 
the title of " the just," and yet not deserve, as something 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 265 



due to him, the least tittle of any supernatural recognition 
or reward of his apparent rectitude. 

To bring out more distinctly how decidedly the Catho- 
lic doctrine shows our absolute dependence on the gratui- 
tous mercy of God, I need only mention that it is de- 
fined, as an article of Faith, that the first movements to- 
wards repentance, and the very thought and desire of 
this blessing, come to us from the impulse of Divine 
Grace (ConciL Trident, sess. vi., de justificatione, 0. 5, 
Can. 3). This is in fact only the development of the 
truth taught by the Apostle, " No man can say the Lord 
Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost" (1. Cor. xii. 3) ; and " We 
are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of 
ourselves ; but our sufficiency is from God " (2. Cor. iii. 5). 

From the rigor with which the Catholic Church main- 
tains this doctrine of St. Paul, Infidels argue, that there 
is no encouragement given to those, who, by a naturally 
good disposition, or the effects of early training, are dis- 
posed to rise from the depths of sin. 

If they would only recognize, in these interior prompt- 
ings to good, the preventing grace of a compassionate 
God, they would easily comprehend, that there is no 
ground whatever for a charge of this kind. There is, 
on the contrary, in Catholic theology, the very highest 
encouragement to a change of life. Every one who 
comes into this world receives this preventing grace. It 
is called also Actual Grace, as distinguished from Habitual 
or sanctifying Grace. It does not, like this latter, render 
those who receive it, acceptable to God, and worthy of 
eternal happiness ; but it prevents, or leads them on, by 
its inspirations before their thoughts are naturally in- 
clined to virtue, to this happy determination. 

This common grace, given abundantly to every one 



266 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 



for Christ's sake, is not the result of early training or 
good natural dispositions ; it is a real operation of God, 
whereby He enlightens our mind, and moves our will to 
break the bonds of Satan, to overcome a temptation, or 
to accomplish a duty long neglected. It is, in all pro- 
bability, the Grace of prayer. 

God has, in His Infinite mercy, made prayer a sort of 
instinct of our weak and fallen nature. At times it is 
felt so strongly that, without positive resistance, the 
erring soul is impelled to cry out to its Creator for 
help. When danger to life is imminent, and human aid 
is out of the question, and self-exertion is utterly power- 
less, man is, in a manner, irresistibly moved to appeal to 
some power superior to himself, or his fellow-creatures. 
He may not have any determinate notion of a God; he 
may be, not only a Pagan, but a wild savage destitute of 
any knowledge, save that feeling immediately connected 
with the sense of self-preservation ; yet if he yields to this 
impulse, though it may be only to send forth a cry for 
help, — an almost involuntary cry, wrung from him by 
the agony of pain, or the misery of helpless desolation, 
that cry is in itself a prayer, and will be heard by Him 
who has inspired it. It is a first Grace, and if the un- 
fortunate being who utters it, accompanies the appeal 
with a corresponding movement of the heart, and thus 
co-operates with the supernatural movement within him, 
it will be followed by other Grace, which will bring either 
the relief desired, or, better still, will rescue the almost 
perishing soul from blank despair. 

It is the distinctive doctrine of the Catholic Church, 
as opposed to every shade of Calvinism or Lutheranism, 
that no matter how deeply fallen man may be, he still 
possesses the power of co-operating with the Divine im- 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 267 



pulse. He may, if lie pleases, stifle the impulse ; but he 
may also, with perfect freedom, yield to its suggestions. 

It would be contrary to Catholic doctrine to believe, 
that an impulse like this, which is in reality an interior 
grace, is reserved only to believers. As Dr. Moehler ob- 
serves, " Catholics not only demonstrate, from the ex- 
amples of illustrious Pagans, the moral freedom enjoyed 
by heathens, and the remnants of good to be found 
among them, but they defend moreover the proposition 
that God's special Grace, communicated for the sake of 
Christ's merits, working retrospectively, and confirming 
the better surviving sentiments in the human breast, is 
undeniably to be traced in many phenomena" (Symbol- 
ism, p. 106). 

That there are no Graces given except through faith 
in Christ, and that, outside the Catholic Church, there 
is given no Grace, are propositions condemned by the 
Church as heretical (Constitut. Unigenitus, Prop. 26 
and 29). 

It was the peculiar teaching of the early Reformers on 
Original sin, that led them into those grave errors, which 
shock the common-sense of unbelievers, and cause them 
to declaim against the degradation of humanity, which 
they wrongly believe is attributable to the teaching of 
the Catholic Church. How beautiful is the real Catho- 
lic doctrine, when compared with these foolish fancies of 
Luther and Calvin ! — " that man under the influence of 
Divine Grace is as a saw that passively lets itself be 
moved by the hand of the workman" — or " a pillar of 
salt, a block, a clod of earth, incapable of working with 
God " (Luther in Genes, c. xix.). 

The following is the true doctrine of the Catholic 
Church, as expressed by Moehler, quoting from the 



268 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 



Council of Trent, — " This Divine call, sent to tlie sinner 
for Christ's sake, is exj^ressed not only in an outward 
invitation, through the preaching of the Gospel, but also 
in an interior action of the Holy Spirit, which rouses the 
slumbering energies of man, more or less sunk in the 
sleep of spiritual death, and urges him to unite himself 
with the power from above, in order to enter upon a new 
course of life. If the sinner hearkens to this call, then 
faith in God's word is the first effect of Divine and hu- 
man activity, co-operating in the way described. The 
sinner perceives the existence of a higher order of things, 
and with entire, and till then unimagined, certainty, 
possesses the conviction of the same. The higher truths 
and promises which he hears, especially the tidings that 
God so loved the world, as to give up His only begotten 
Son for it, and offered to all, forgiveness of sins, for the 
sake of Christ's merits, .-hake the sinner. While he com- 
pares what he is, with what, according to the revealed 
will of God, he ought to be ; while he learns, that so 
grievous is sin, and the world's corruption, that it is only 
through the mediation of the Son of God, it can be ex- 
tirpated, he attains to true self-knowledge, and is filled 
with the fear of God's judgments. He now turns to the 
Divine Compassion in Christ Jesus, and conceives the 
confiding hope, that, for the sake of his Redeemer's 
merits, God may graciously vouchsafe to him, the for- 
giveness of his sins. From this contemplation of God's 
love for man, a spark of Divine love is enkindled in the 
human breast — hatred and detestation for sin arise, and 
man doth penance" (Moehler, Symbohsm, p. 117, quot- 
ing Cone. Trident, sess. vi. c. 6). 

This is the doctrine of free co-operation, without which, 
God's Grace, though omnipotent in itself, can by the order 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 269 



established by Him, effect nothing in the heart of man. 
God has made us free, and while He would again, if it 
were necessary, give up His Divine Son for us all, so that 
none should perish, He will not in any way deface the 
image of Himself, stamped on man, by overruling the 
glorious privilege of human liberty. 

The immense difference between the Catholic doctrine 
and that of the Reformers, the latter teaching, as it does, 
the total annihilation of free-will, clearly demonstrates 
how intimately all revealed truths are knit together : 
and that one cannot be disturbed, without throwing the 
whole into confusion, — a confusion that affects not only 
abstract principles, but extends to the most practical con- 
sequences. 

Christians who reject the teaching of the infallible 
guide, point with satisfaction to the serious disputes, and 
heart-rendings, and bitter persecutions, that arose in the 
times of the Council of Juce, from the change of a letter 
in the expression of orthodox faith. " See," they ex- 
claim, "the folly of extreme dogmatic teaching. Can 
anything be conceived more pitiful than the fierce con- 
tentions about the spelling of a word applied to the Re- 
deemer, and whether one single vowel should be omitted 
— whether the word should beomoitsios or omoiousios !" 
Yes, but the great fact of the Atonement, and therefore 
the whole foundation of Christianity, in the faith of be- 
lievers, rested on the very point indicated by the single 
letter. It was a matter of sovereign importance whether 
Christians should believe, that Christ was really God, or 
only a Being, in some sort like to God ; the first Greek 
word clearly expressing His Divinity — the second only in- 
definitely something like unto God. 

Those who applaud the "broad" interpretation of a 



270 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 

mystery, see with indifference the whole Athanasian Creed 
crumble into nothingness ; — while the Catholic Church, to- 
day, as ever, and until the end of time will proclaim that 
Mary is the Mother of God, and that Jesus Christ our 
Lord is " the "Word made flesh," and " the glory of the only 
begotten Son of the Father," — consubstantial with Him — 
" and full of Grace and truth" (John i. 14). 

The second grand principle, that man can co-operate 
with, or resist Divine Grace, taken with the truth explained 
in the beginning of this chapter, that Grace is beyond all 
human merit constitute the unmistakable lines, on which 
orthodox Faith moves safely, through the mists and 
shadows, which obscure the whole subject. 

The main difficulty consists in reconciling the freedom 
of the will with the efficiency of the Divine impulse ; 
and though Theologians differ, and probably will differ to 
the end of time, all Catholics are agreed in this, that Di- 
vine Grace is given to us gratis, or without merit on our 
part, and that, in determining us to good, it leaves us per- 
fectly free to accept or resist its influence. It will be 
sufficient merely to note that the dispute runs on the 
points whether Grace acts physically or morally, in pro- 
ducing meritorious human acts ; whether it works directly 
or indirectly ; immediately, or by rendering the object be- 
fore the choice of the soul, pleasing and delectable. 

There are different systems which undertake to explain 
these a]3parently insoluble questions, but they could 
scarcely interest the general reader. It is in truth a mys- 
tery, and all the explanations go to establish the conclusion, 
that the efficiency of Divine Grace depends practically on 
the free acceptance, or resistance of the will. Our Father 
who is in Heaven, may urge us to do good, or to avoid evil, 
by exciting within us certain feelings, that ordinarily affect 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 271 

human beings, or a special congruous feeling, that falls in 
with the peculiar tendencies of each individual, or Grace 
itself — may mould and fashion, directly and immediately, 
the will ; but He will never move us to act by the exercise 
of an omnipotent force, that necessitates our determina- 
tion. If He did, He would, by this exercise of His sov- 
ereign power, destroy in the individual, thus moved to any 
particular act, so far the grand distinction by which, not- 
withstanding all our unworthiness, He has been pleased 
to exalt us above all His creatures, and stamped on our 
souls the image and likeness of Himself. 

When the Reformers taught that Free-will was so 
fatally wounded by the Fall, that it perished altogether, 
and that, consequently, man had no power to co-operate 
with, or to resist the supernatural influence of Grace, they 
were driven, by the necessity of this position, to deny 
the existence of moral responsibility. Whether they 
wished it or not, they found themselves fixed, as immov- 
ably as Stoics, on the suicidal, and revolting weapon of 
absolute fatality. Their disciples may do all they can to 
soften down the terrible consequences of this fatal error ; 
but in the judgment of common-sense and sound morality, 
they stand before the world convicted of a fearful mis- 
take, which, more than any exaggerated calumny, invented 
to injure the fair name of the Spouse of Christ, has cov- 
ered Christianity, as interpreted by them, with hopeless 
confusion and disgrace. 

I said, in the beginning, that the errors of the Pelagians 
lie at the root of all the misconceptions of Catholic doc- 
trine on this subject, which prevail at the present time; 
and hence, it may be interesting to know, in a few words, 
what these errors mainly were. 

The Pelagian heresy is the exaltation of humanity, at 



272 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY A XD DIVINE GRACE. 



the expense of the Divine government. Under pretence 
of defending Free-will, the Pelagians, with their uphold- 
ers, seini-Pela^ians, Armenians and Soeinians, denv the 
influence of Divine Grace. They denv the transmission 
of original sin, and therefore, maintain that the descend- 
ants of Adam are aide, without any supernatural help, to 
attain the end of their being. According to them, Free- 
will consists in a perfect balance between good and evil. 
Grace, or what is properly called Grace, the interior emo- 
tions excited in the soul by God's Holy Spirit, overturns, 
in their view, tliis balance, and therebv destrovs Free- 
will. 

Of course their notion of Free-will being a perfect 
balance, between good and evil, is a mistaken premise ; 
for it is evident, on this explanation of human liberty, the 
really virtuous man would, in proportion as he advanced 
in holmes?, lose his liberty. The balance, inclining more 
and more to the side of good, by the force of habit even, 
not to speak of inclination and conviction, would leave 
him the slave of goodness. 

Thev got over the difficulties of numerous texts in the 
Bible, by explaining that, where the Sacred Scriptures 
insisted on the necessity of supernatural help, the mean- 
ing was, only exterior help, such as reading the Scriptures, 
or listening to sermons and expositions of the Law of 
God. 

They never would admit the necessity of Interior 
Grace. When they say, that God does not refuse Grace 
to the man who does all he can to live well, they mean 
that He gives knowledge of Jesus Christ, or of the pre- 
cepts of the Gospel, or the moral excellence >i the Divine 
law. 

The semi-Pe" ^ did not deny altogether the neces- 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GKACE. 273 



sity of Interior Grace ; but they maintained that what we 
call "preventing Grace," or the first impulses to serre 
God, the desire and love of virtue, disgust for sin, and 
similar movements, were not supernatural ; but proceeded 
from man's own natural feelings ; and that, only when 
man disposed himself naturally to merit and receive 
the supernatural interior help, did he really receive it. 
They held, moreover, that having once received this in- 
terior help, he had no need of its continuance, to enable 
him to persevere. 

The Catholic Church declares that actual interior grace 
is absolutely necessary to man, not only to enable him to 
perform a work meritorious in the sight of God, but even 
to desire to do it. The simple desire of Grace is, in 
itself, a Grace ; consequently Grace is always gratuitous, 
and never the recompense of natural good dispositions ; 
and moreover to enable man to persevere in doing good, 
and avoiding evil, he always needs a special supernatural 
help, without which, however strong his determination, 
he will certainly fall away again. Hence it follows that 
God gives to those who are saved, first justifying Grace, 
and then final perseverance, not because He foresees in 
them good dispositions, which will lead them to corre- 
spond with these gifts ; but because, in His infinite 
wisdom and goodness, He judges fit to bestow these gifts 
gratuitously. 

This doctrine is, of course, most offensive to human 
pride ; and is as much hated by the spirit of unbelief, as 
any of the misapprehensions of Catholic Christianity, 
that shock human reason. 

It is particularly odious in these days ; for the popular 
religion of the present time is, not so much the worship 
of nature, as the worship of humanity. To quote the 



274 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 

words of Frederic Harrison, in a remarkable article in the 
number of the Nineteenth Century for March, 1884 — 
" The religion of men, in the vast cycle of primitive ages, 
was reverence for Nature, as influencing man. The 
religion of man, in the vast cycles that are to come, will be 
reverence for Humanity supported by Nature. . . . The 
final religion of enlightened man is the systematized and 
scientific form of the spontaneous religion of natural 
man. Both rest on the same elements, — belief in the 
Power which controls his life, and grateful reverence for 
the power so acknowledged. The primitive man thought 
that Power to be the object of Nature affecting man. 
The cultured man knows that Power to be Humanity 
itself, controlling and controlled by nature according to 
natural law." f 

How this new religion will, as the clever essayist 
believes, make good men and women, is more than one 
of practical common-sense can see. Mr. Harrison does 
not believe in the immortality of the soul, — this dogma 
is, according to him, "a vapid figment." The humanity 
of the past is therefore, according to his views, resolved 
into nothingism. The poor, and afflicted, who most of 
all, need sympathy between them and the object of their 
belief, will hardly give their veneration, and service, and 
love, to that thing called Humanity, which, in the pride 
of its Egoism, as manifested in the enlightened individ- 
uals, who are supposed by Progress to personate this 
unknowable abstraction, is rapidly freezing up the hearts 
of all, who have been taught by it, to forget the Sovereign 
Lord of all things, and the Father, and Protector, and 
Eewarder, of those who place their trust in Him. 

But when the Catholic doctrine of Grace is separated 
from all the dross and impurity, with which error and 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 275 

heresy have confused it, how beautifully it falls in with 
all that we know, by Kevelation, of God's infinite good- 
ness! When it is considered, in its simple truth, apart 
alike from the gloom of Puritanism, and the sickly garb 
of emotional and sentimental religious fancies ; and con- 
trasted with "the concupiscence of the flesh, and the 
concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life," which 
form the true character of the idol of the day ; " men of 
good- will " are sure to cling, v T ith fonder love and more 
confidence than ever, to the blessed God, " from whom 
every good gift comes ; " and who is the real Father of 
His children in every age. 

For, what does the consoling Catholic doctrine of Grace 
emphatically teach us ? Is it not, first of all, that the 
Great God " is no respecter of persons " (Acts x. 34) ; 
but One "Who, without respect of persons, judgeth 
according to every one's work" (1 Pet. i. 17) ; " Who 
maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and 
raineth upon the just and the unjust " (Matt. v. 45). We 
are all His children ; and to the poorest, the lowliest, and 
the most degraded, is given, according to the measure of 
His bounty, a gift beyond all price, that supernatural 
gift, which will enable every one to merit Heaven. To 
some He gives more, to some less, but to all, sufficient. 
He gives to every one a treasure of infinite value ; for if 
it is only well employed, it will be the price of that 
glory, which is the happiness of God Himself. 

More than this, He gives it again and again, when, 
through our own most grievous fault, it has been squan- 
dered and lost. Not seven times, but " seventy times 
seven times," He is ready to renew His gift. Nay 
more, though during a long life, we may have set onr 
hearts on perishable objects, and preferred them to Him ; 



276 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINE GRACE. 



even, "in the eleventh hour," when the dawning of 
eternity shall exhibit to ns the awful precipice, to the 
brink of which our blind folly has conducted lis, and fill 
us with terror, He will still be near us, with His merci- 
ful arms stretched out to save us. If, even in that last 
hour, we will only yield to the pressing influence of that 
common grace of prayer, and cry to Him for help, He 
will so surely give us that abundant aid which alone can 
save us from destruction, that a deliberate doubt of His 
mercy, and the wilfulness of despair, would, in the injury 
it offers to His promise of loving patience, surpass in 
perverse wickedness the iniquities of a sinful life. 

Such thoughts as these help us to understand some- 
thing of the consolation afforded to the worst sinner in 
the world, by the Catholic doctrine of Grace. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND PKOSPEKITY. 277 



CHAPTER XIV. 
Catholic Christianity and Material Prosperity. 

THE thoughts naturally suggested by the passage 
from Mr. Frederic Harrison, quoted towards the 
close of the last chapter, that Humanity is to be the sole 
Deity of cultured and enlightened man in the future, 
lead me to consider another popular argument against 
revealed Religion which is intimately connected with 
this new object of deification. 

I do not question the truth of the statement of this 
apostle of Free-thought, as regards those whom he con- 
siders enlightened ; nay I will go further, and express 
my conviction, that " Humanity,' ? which can mean noth- 
ing else, than all that is dear to the natural man, — his 
comfort, and ease and happiness in this life, is already 
enthroned, as the object of adoration, by ever-increasing 
crowds of silly votaries. 

Perhaps it would be more intelligible to substitute for 
the abstraction, something more akin to Realism; and 
say that Riches or Wealth, which enable man to be happy, 
as they understand happiness, here below, — is the actual 
Deity of the unbelieving world. Our Divine Lord calls 
this Deity — Mammon : our practical friends beyond the 
Atlantic, call it profanely, " the Almighty Dollar." 

There can be no doubt upon the matter ; those who 
reject the hopes held out to us by Revelation, worship 
the great enemy of Christ, whose service is absolutely 
incompatible with that which we owe to the Son of God. 



278 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



" You cannot serve God and Mammon" (Matt. vi. 24). 
All the fashionable "isms" of the present day only 
amuse the intellect ; but the heart clings to its treasure, 
and loving it, must hate the other master who demands 
its affections. 

Of course, I do not mean Wealth for its own sake ; but 
that which worldly men treasure as their chief good as a 
means and opportunity of satisfying the various forms of 
desire. Xeither do I mean for a moment to insinuate, 
that the majority of the worshipj)ers of Mammon seek 
their happiness in the gratification of low animal passions. 
They are far too wise, and too fond of their comfort, to 
plunge into excesses, that soon bring their own punish- 
ment. What the votaries of the new Deity call virtue, 
is not so much "irrational self-denial," as that keen- 
sighted prudence, which guards against excess, and those 
refined tastes, which afford exquisite enjoyment and 
gratification to the sensual appetite. This naturally in- 
volves the highest degrees of quasi-intellectual and 
aesthetic culture. 

But all the pleasures of life, the most refined, as well 
as the most animal, depend on wealth, as the means of 
enjoying them. The deity of wealth is devoutly wor- 
shipped, not only by unbelievers, but also, covertly per- 
haps, by many Christians. Hence comes the objection 
which I mean to answer, and which is urged fiercely, and 
with entire conviction of its truth, against Catholic 
Christianity by all its enemies. 

" The Catholic teaching is," they say, " the enemy of 
social happiness, because Catholic countries are always 
poor, and behind all others in the race for worldly pros- 
perity, and wealth, and influence. There is something 
in this old creed, which weighs down on the nations, that 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



279 



put faith in its teaching, and leaves them broken down 
and distanced, and without life and energy, in the midst 
of general prosperity." " Look, 3 ' they triumphantly ex- 
claim, in every record of public opinion devoted to their 
interests, " the old Church is manifestly behind the times, 
wherever it exercises its baneful influence. Where are 
now the nations that still profess the Catholic faith ? 
Where is Catholic Spain, and Austria and Italy and 
France ?" 

Or, to bring things nearer home to those who speak 
the English language, mark the state of Ireland. Com- 
pare it with Protestant Scotland, or note the fatal degen- 
eracy, that invariably exists in the same country, amongst 
the Catholic part of the population, in comparison with 
those Provinces or districts that are enlivened by the 
Protestant element. The difference is so great, for ex- 
ample, between the Protestant and Catholic Cantons of 
Switzerland, or Ulster with its sturdy Presbyterians, and 
Connaught with its miserable and starving cottiers, that 
a stranger, merely passing through these different parts 
of the same country, will at once perceive the wretched 
decay, which follows necessarily from clinging to the 
musty traditions of old-fashioned ideas." 

I cannot help noticing, before I answer this popular 
objection, how strange it is, that Protestants, who are 
ever boasting of their purer and more spiritual worship, 
should give their attention, almost exclusively, to this 
worldly and temporal view of Religion. Admitting for a 
moment, that the facts are not to be questioned or de- 
nied, does it follow that worldly prosperity, and the 
active and successful pursuit of wealth and power and 
distinction of this kind, is a proof of the truth of Pro- 
testantism ? If so, the nature of the Eeligion preached 



280 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



by our Divine Lord, and exemplified in His whole life, 
must have completely changed its character. He not 
only declared expressly, that no man, and therefore no 
body of men, can at the same time serve God and 
Mammon ; but He denounced riches, as one of the 
greatest obstacles to the attainment of the eternal hap- 
piness, He promised His disciples. " And I say to you, 
it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
heaven" (Matt. xix. 24). And again — " Wo to you that 
are rich : for you have received your consolation" (Luke 
vi. 24). He sternly repressed the earthly ambitions of 
His disciples ; and told them, that they would be out- 
casts, and persecuted, and the most miserable of men : 
and as far as He could, impressed it upon their minds, 
that worldly prosperity is no evidence of Divine favor. 

What has changed all this ? Is it the " progressive" 
spirit of the world? But the world and its false prin- 
ciples will perish, while His words will never pass away. 

However I do not care to press this point farther with 
those who look down on us Catholics, as being so far 
beneath them, in our appreciation of Gospel lessons, and 
esteem it their peculiar privilege to hold fast to " the 
truth as it is in Jesus." It is only one of these numerous 
inconsistencies, that reveal themselves constantly in the 
ways of thinking and acting of those who will not " hear 
the Church." 

Those who openly worship Humanity, and all that 
pleases human nature, and ridicule the maxims and 
counsels of Christ, wherever they clash most forcibly 
with ideas of " progress," have a right to press the ob- 
jection to its fullest consequences. If they are perfectly 
satisfied that the only true wisdom and practical common- 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



281 



sense, is " to love the world, and the things that are in 
the world," as the chief good, they may fairly and con- 
sistently urge this point against Catholic Christianity. 
Let us briefly see if the objection is founded on facts : 
it is common enough, but not on this account more true. 

I will admit at once, that pauperism, bringing with it 
physical and moral evils of the worst kind, is one of the 
greatest plague spots of modern civilization. 

But it cannot be doubted, that Catholicity, in all ages, 
has devoted its most earnest attention to assuage these 
evils. The existence of numerous Religious orders, 
founded mainly to keep alive the spirit of real Christian 
charity, in the performance, according to solemn vow, of 
the works of mercy, spiritual and corporal, settles that 
question. However great national wealth may be, there 
must exist, in spite of this wealth, an immense amount 
of real poverty. "The poor," says our Divine Lord, 
" you have always with you" (Matt. xxvi. 11). 

Wealthy London, it is well known, has its tens of 
thousands of wretched human beings, who, when they 
rise from the bare earth, or from crowded dens, worse by 
far, in their squalid misery than the caves and earth- 
homes of our Bushmen, know not where to turn for the 
bare necessaries of life. It is the same more or less in 
all the great cities of Europe and America. 

All that can be done for these victims of extreme want 
is to endeavor, as far as possible, to alleviate their suffer- 
ings : and the most blind and bigoted enemy of the 
Catholic Church must admit, that, in proportion to the 
means at her disposal, and to the liberty of action allowed 
her by civil governments, she has always made the most 
strenuous exertions to provide for the suffering poor. In 
this respect, she has so far surpassed other creeds, that 



282 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



she has been charged with an excess of liberality, which 
fosters and encourages the evil. 

I need not say any more on this point, but come at 
once to the main charge, urged against her by the abet- 
tors of material progress, — that she is the chief obstruc- 
tion to national prosperity. 

The case of Scotland, as compared with Ireland, is 
most frequently quoted, as a clear and convincing proof, 
that Protestantism favors the development of national 
wealth, while Catholicity prevents it. 

" Catholics," say the Infidel and the upholders of ultra- 
liberalism and Free-thought, "are so ground down by 
dogmatic teaching, and senile submission to authority, 
that they dare not cherish the aspirations of a free and 
enlightened people. They must obey their priests, and 
as it is the interest of the clergy to keep them in bondage, 
the people have no chance of breaking their fetters, and 
rising to the sense of manly feelings. 

" Sectarian passions," says M. de Laveleye, a leader of 
this school of thought, "have been too often imported 
into the study of these questions. It is time that we 
should apply to it the method of observation, and the 
scientific impartiality of the physiologist and the natural- 
ist. "When the facts are established, irrefragable conclu- 
sions will follow. It is admitted, that the Scotch and 
Irish are of the same origin. Both have become subject 
to the English yoke. Until the sixteenth century, Ireland 
was much more civilized than Scotland. During the first 
part of the middle ages, Ireland was a focus of civiliza- 
tion, while Scotland was still a den of barbarians. Since 
the Scotch have embraced the Reformation, they have 
outrun even the English. . . . Ireland, on the other hand, 
devoted to Ultramontanism, is poor, miserable, agitated 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



283 



by the spirit of rebellion, and seems incapable of raising 
herself by her own strength." 

And he adds, " More than this, in the very same conn- 
try, Protestant Ulster is wealthy, while Catholic Con- 
naught is wretchedly poor" (" Protestantism and Catho- 
licity in their Bearing upon the Liberty and Prosperity 
of Nations," by Emile de Laveleye, p, 12). The com- 
parison is so often made, and is put so distinctly by this 
writer, that, if as I hope to do, I prove it to be stupid 
and worthless, it may effect more to enlighten my readers 
on this point, than whole pages of more general reasoning. 

With all his professions of treating the question of fact 
" with scientific impartiality," this writer makes egregi- 
ous blunders. The Scotch are not of the same origin as 
the Irish. This is true only of a small portion of the 
Scottish race, the Highlanders, and the men of the Isles. 
Again, the races differ in Ulster and Connaught. In 
Connaught, we have the descendants of an early Celtic 
nation; in Ulster, a colony of English and Lowland 
Scotch. So much for scientific accuracy. 

But mistakes like these do not affect the question very 
much. The causes of the prosperity of Scotland, and the 
want of prosperity in Ireland, are to be sought in the 
history of the two countries. 

They are thus clearly put by a writer in the Dublin 
Review : 66 Scotland has been eminently fortunate. She 
was united with England on equal terms ; she preserved 
her own laws, her own courts, her own local institu- 
tions. Her manufacturers competed on equal terms with 
the English trader; the capital of the richer country 
was placed freely at her disposal ; under her own free 
laws, her educational system was steadily developed; 
finally there were no wholesale confiscations of land; 



284 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



there was no alien colony, no laws passed in the interest 
of a minority ; no state Church established in the interest 
of a few. 

" On the other hand, all the miseries that Scotland 
escaped, were inflicted on Ireland ; of all the advan- 
tages that Scotland possessed, Ireland was deliberately 
and systematically deprived. The English rule was 
firmly established in Ireland, by the wars of the Tudors ; 
and from the outset, she was governed in the interests of 
the English Colony. Repeated confiscations ruined the 
native proprietor, and placed the land of the country in 
the hands of men who were really foreigners, who spoke 
not a word of the Irish language, who professed a strange 
Religion, who, in a word, were an armed garrison, holding 
Ireland in their own interest. The faith of Ireland was 
proscribed, and those who held that faith were system- 
atically plundered and persecuted. More than once, they 
took up arms against this intolerable tyranny, only to be 
defeated and placed more completely in the power of 
their Protestant rulers. Their schools were destroyed,, 
the laws were directed' as much against the Catholic 
schoolmaster as the Catholic priest. Their trade was 
destroyed by laws for the protection of English commerce 
and English manufactures. An Irishman and a Catholic 
could not have his children educated in his own country; 
could only practise his Religion by stealth ; could not aspire 
to any civil or military dignity ; could not even have a 
horse worth more than five pounds in his possession." 

There is not a word stated here that cannot be vouched 
for by English writers who are by no means favorable to 
Ireland. 

Even Mr. Froude's "English in Ireland" will furnish 
ample evidence, that the worst forms of protection were 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



285 



used to destroy Irish, to the advantage of English trade. 
Lord Brougham said of the penal code, under which the 
fathers of the present generation groaned, "It was so 
ingeniously contrived, that an Irish Catholic could not 
lift up his hand, without breaking it." "Well did Ed- 
mund Burke denounce it, as " the most proper machine 
ever invented by the wit of man to disgrace a realm and 
degrade a people ?" 

"Who that knows these facts will attribute the differ- 
ence between Scotland and Ireland to Religion ? In one 
sense it is true no doubt, that Eeligion was the chief cause 
of Ireland's suffering. The people might have escaped 
at least the worst of this terrible persecution, had they 
chosen to purchase immunity from cruel wrong by shame- 
ful apostacy. But they preferred to be poor with Christ, 
rather than to serve Mammon. This is the true reason, 
that, while Scotland flourished under the smiles of her 
all-powerful rulers, Ireland became poor and wretched 
under their hatred and their frown. 

The comparison between Ulster and Connaught is most 
misleading, as far as wealth is concerned. Connaught is 
naturally a wilderness of bog and mountain, when com- 
pared to fertile Ulster. Place the most industrious race 
on earth in Connaught, and a far inferior people in 
Ulster, and the latter would, even in a few years, be 
wealthier and more prosperous in every respect. 

People who, like M. de Laveleye, desire to work out 
pet theories, find it convenient to ignore whatever tells 
against them. Every reader of history knows what is 
meant by the expression "to Hell or Connaught. 55 It 
was the war-cry, but I can hardly call it that, when the 
defenceless were hunted down like wild beasts : it was 
the exultant yell of the greedy followers of the pious 



286 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



Cromwell, borrowed it is said from him, in Ireland, when, 
after driving out of the country eighty thousand Catholic 
Irishmen, to be shipped like cattle, and sold as slaves in 
Barbadoes, the miserable remnant of the five-sixths of the 
Catholics who had perished, were driven beyond the 
Shannon into Connaught, there to die of hunger, or sur- 
vive as they best might, in the wild wastes of this most 
desolate part of Ireland. When these things are conven- 
iently forgotten, one may venture to say, in spite of the 
difference of the means of acquiring wealth in the two 
provinces ; Ulster is rich because it is Protestant, and the 
West of Ireland, poor, because it is Catholic. 

" But," it will be said, " look to Switzerland, and there 
you will find, amongst the very same people, with the 
same history, and the same country, the most striking 
difference between the Protestant and Catholic cantons. 
Here it is not the theory of a light-brained French 
observer that is to guide us, but the testimony of one 
thoroughly acquainted with the subject — Mr. Hepworth 
Dixon." 

Mr. Dixon, in his book on Switzerland, tells us that 

in the very same canton, the canton of Appenzell, the 
Protestants are industrious and rich, while the Catholics 
are lazy, poor, ignorant, living in scattered huts, meeting 
only at Mass, or at their popular sports. 

But what are the facts ? This canton of Appenzell is 
divided into the two districts of Inner Ehoden, inhabited 
by 11,900 Catholics, and Ausser Ehoden, which has a 
population of 46,726 Protestants. The towns and villages 
of Ausser Ehoden stand in a fertile low-lying district, 
while the Catholics of the other district, which is moun- 
tainous and unfit for cultivation, are a scattered race of 
shepherds. M. de Haulleville, who gives us this in for- 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



287 



ination, went to the spot, and carefully ascertained the 
causes of this difference, which has been quoted with 
conscious triumph, by every tourist who hates the old 
Church. {De VAvenir des Peujples Catholiques, par le 
Baron de Haulleville.) 

The whole argument, attempting to prove the excel- 
lence of Religion by the worldly prosperity of the peo- 
ple professing it, is not only unchristian, but utterly fal- 
lacious. If the thrift and industry of the Scotch are due 
to Protestantism, to what shall we ascribe the enterprise 
and commerce of the Catholic republics of Venice and 
Genoa, during the middle ages, before Protestantism was 
dreamt of ? 

This is the way in which the point is put by the learned 
Bishop Spalding, and he presses it thus — " If England's 
wealth to-day comes from the Reformation, how shall we 
account for that of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries ? And if the decline of Spain has been brought 
about by the Catholic faith, to what cause shall we assign 
that of Holland, who in the seventeenth century ruled 
the seas, and did the carrying trade of Europe ?" 

I remember once hearing a very pious Protestant who 
had, after spending the greater part of his life in the 
Colony, paid a short visit to England. He was of course 
eloquent " in season and out of season," in prayer-meet- 
ing, and at the corners of the streets in Grahamstown, 
on the piety and morality of " the dear little island ;" 
but words failed him, when he attempted to describe her 
worldly prosperity, the fruit, he said, of her thoroughly 
Protestant enlightenment and consequent spirit of prog- 
ress. " England," he used to falter out, is " the — the 
workshop of the world." 

Had he extended his travels beyond the Atlantic, he 



288 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



might have learned that, in America, where most of the 
quondam Protestant portion of the population, tired of 
hearing the praises of " the pure and blessed Reforma- 
tion," and not finding anything particularly wonderful in 
it to suit their matter-of-fact notions, have abandoned it 
for open Infidelity, these people have their workshops 
too, and possess all the thrift and industry and energy and 
daring, supposed by the congregation to which this old 
gentleman belonged, to be the exclusive property of the 
righteous and the elect. 

Thank goodness, all Colonial home-travellers are not 
of this stamp. I have met with several, who, instead of 
fanning their devotion to Protestantism and their own 
particular sect, with the airs of insular conceit, have ex- 
tended their rambles to the Continent of Europe, and 
have learned to respect the Catholic people, they were 
taught to despise. They had their wits about them, and 
were glad " to pick up notions," wherever they found 
them. 

Such as these have much to say to their friends in the 
Colony about grand Churches, and Cathedrals, and pic- 
ture-galleries, and museums, and arts and manufactures, 
and people gentle and polished in their manners, and re- 
finement and politeness under the rough " blouse ;" and 
other things of the kind, not before " dreamt of in their 
philosophy." 

Foreign travel, in these cases, is not without its value : 
it expands the mind and enlarges the heart, and disposes 
men to believe that, after all they have heard to the preju- 
dice of Catholics, there may be something really good, 
and worth knowing, beyond the narrow compass of their 
own particular place of worship. They soon learn that 
there are other matters too, to be learned in the highways 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



289 



of life beyond the shop-keeping and trading Philosophy 
— that " time is money," and " knowledge is wealth/' 
and all these other " Poor Richard " maxims, which have 
been dinned into their ears from childhood. There is a 
lesson to be acquired and one worth retaining, even in a 
passing visit to the glorious monuments of the ages of 
Faith. 

The grand old Cathedrals, the vast but unpreten- 
tious hospitals, and the huge piles consecrated to works 
of charity, tell of men who believed that there were other 
treasures to be gained in this life, than mere wealth and 
riches, which must one day be abandoned. Happy they, 
who, at the sight of what they might at first be tempted 
to call prodigality in the Divine honor, begin to reflect, 
that, after all, we cannot do too much to show reverence 
and respect to the great Being, who has created us " to 
know and serve Him here on earth— that we may be happy 
with Him forever in Heaven." 

They cannot fail, under the influence of such thoughts, 
to respect the motives, and the Religion of those, who 
make great sacrifices, of what the world most prizes, to 
testify their ardent love for their merciful Redeemer. 
And the more they think in this way — the clearer will it ap- 
pear to them, that worldly prosperity — and luxury, and 
grand equipages, and gorgeous mansions, and profuse ex- 
penditure in the gratification of self — are not certain and 
positive proofs of the reality and earnestness of the Re- 
ligion of the people, whose fame for such things is ex- 
tolled among the nations. Under this outward show of 
prosperity, the apparent reward of true merit, there are 
often concealed sins of miserable selfishness, that cry to 
Heaven for vengeance. 

How pregnant with deep meaning is that sublime pas- 



290 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



sage of St. Augustine in " The City of God," — commenc- 
ing with the words — "fecerunt civitates duos amoves 
duoP It can scarcely be translated without losing its 
brilliancy — I can only attempt, feebly to paraphrase it in 
English. " Two cities have been formed by two different 
kinds of love, — the earthly city, by the love of self, that 
reaches even to contempt of God, — the heavenly city, by 
the love of God, that extends even to contempt of self" 
(De Civitate Dei, Lib. xiv. c. IT). One that, in a thought- 
ful mood, amid the rush and roar of the tide of life of 
wealthy London, recalls the quiet of a continental town, 
rich in the monuments of the ages of Faith, must make 
something like the contrast suggested by the words of St. 
Augustine. 

How fallacious is that test of the genuineness of Re- 
ligion, which is supposed to be found in the prosperity 
of a people ! Apply it to an individual, and can anything 
equal its absurdity ! Sir Gorgius Midas of London is the 
millionaire of millionaires, therefore he is the most holy 
of the myriads that throng the vast city ! 

And is the wealth of a nation an infallible sign of the 
prosperity of its people ? England contains within itself 
the wealthiest men in the world ; are the English people, 
therefore, the most wealthy ? If a few thousand nobles 
own all its broad acres, while millions grovel in poverty, 
does this wealth of a few constitute the prosperity of the 
nation ? 

" In England," says Bishop Spalding, " the pauper class, 
compared with the whole population, is as one to twenty- 
three. In poor Ireland, there is but one pauper to ninety 
inhabitants. In other words, much as we hear of England's 
vast superiority in wealth to the sister island, pauperism 
is four times more common in England than in Ireland." 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



291 



u But, 55 it is said, "look to the healthy life and vigor 
of England, and there yon will see what sturdy Protes- 
tantism has made her, — Protestantism, not so much in 
itself as a Religion, but as the herald of Free-thought. 55 
" The nations subject to Rome, 55 says 1VL de Lavaleye, 
" seem stricken with barrenness ; they no longer colonize, 
they have no power of expansion." 

Yes, no doubt England is the great colonizer of the 
day ; but is it the national wealth, and her aspirations 
after Free-thought, that give her this pre-eminence % It 
is, confessedly, the poverty of the masses in Great Brit- 
ain, that is filling the emigrant ships, and sending away, 
yearly, so many thousands from " dear home and coun- 
try. 55 

" But, 55 continues the objector, " those who are driven 
out by hard necessity, have in them, thanks to the spirit 
of freedom, and the right to think for themselves, that 
comes from the rejection of spiritual bondage, the energy 
and perseverance which have founded the vast colonial 
empire of ' Great Britain. 5 5 ' 

But, let it be remembered that the mother country 
owes much, and by far the greater part of this wide em- 
pire, to Catholic enterprise. In the present day, how 
many of her colonists in Canada, in Australia, Tasmania, 
New Zealand, and the Cape, are Catholic Irishmen ; and 
in the past, many of her most successful colonies were 
founded by Catholic France, and fell into the hands of 
England by the chances of war. 

Take Canada for instance, founded by the enterprise 
and piety of Champlain, and won for England by the 
valor of Wolfe. The people of Acadia, as painted by 
Longfellow, thoroughly Catholic in every sense, were not 
inferior to " the Pilgrim Fathers, 5 ' of whom we hear so 



292 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



much. Many of the most famous cities of Canada were 
once humble Catholic mission-stations. The mission- 
station of Hochelaga, founded by a priest and a few nuns 
and workmen, in the autumn of 1641, is now the City of 
Montreal. I quote from the Dublin Review. 

" The Catholic missionaries have been in the past the 
pioneers of Catholic colonization, in other places besides 
Canada. The first white man, who ever looked upon the 
waters of the Mississippi, was a French Jesuit, the Pore 
Marquette. A few years after, France founded the 
colony of Louisiana. The colonies of Spain, in the 
Philippines, belong to the same class. Sir John Bow- 
ring has spoken of the Jesuits of the Philippines, as the 
pioneers and the founders of civilization in the great 
Eastern Archipelago. India is the chief gem of the Im- 
perial crown of England ; but there were days, when 
only the chance of war decided who should hold it, Pro- 
testant England or Catholic France." 

Prussia is often pointed to, as a flourishing Protestant 
country, great in power because of her Protestantism. 
During the late war with France, it was chiefly the re- 
ligious feeling that cooled the affection of Englishmen 
for their faithful allies in the Crimea, and enkindled their 
sympathy for Prussia. But one-third of the population 
of Prussia is Catholic ; her wealthiest provinces are 
Catholic. And it must not be forgotten, that Catholic 
Bavaria, at Woerth, Sedan, and on the battle-fields of the 
Loire, did much to turn the tide of success against 
France. 

"But look at France, 'the eldest daughter of the 
Church,' Catholic France, see how she has fallen back in 
the advance of nations P' 

Yes, but is it because she is Catholic ? On the con- 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 293 

trary, the more she has yielded to the infatuation of 
Free-thought, the more she has fallen, Let France be 
again truly Catholic. Let her abjure those silly fancies, 
which, in the opinion of every one capable of forming 
a dispassionate judgment on the point, are luring her to 
destruction, and she will again take her high place in 
directing the destinies of the world. 

But I feel that I have dwelt too long on an objection, 
which means nothing, when it is thoroughly examined ; 
and has only an apparent force, because it humors the 
prejudices, and self-love of those who bring it forward. 
If rapid prosperity, and the accumulation of wealth, are a 
sign of the true Religion, then the Buddhism of Japan is 
the true Religion ; for where shall we find a nation that has 
made such wonderful, such rapid, and such substantial 
progress, in our days, as this empire of Japan ? 

If it be noticed that I have, in treating this objection, 
seemed rather to argue with Protestants than unbelievers, 
the reason is not far to be traced. It is not the mere 
negative character of Protestantism that is supposed by 
Free-thinkers to influence the growth of peoples; it is 
the principle of rebellion against spiritual authority, to 
which Free-thought owes its existence, that is mainly re- 
garded in this question of material progress. 

As Bishop Spalding ably puts it. " The unbelievers 
make common cause with the Christian sects, against the 
Catholic Church, because the Church is the only enemy 
they fear, the only Christian body, which is the faithful 
and uncompromising guardian of Revelation. They 
are partial to the sects, because, in their workings, they 
percei ve, as they think, the breaking up and dissolution 
of the whole Christian system. Protestantism is valu- 
able in their eyes as a stage, in what Herbert Spencer 



294 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



calls 'the universal religions thaw,' which is going on 
around us" (" Influence of Catholicism and Protestantism 
on National Prosperity," Spalding's Essays, p. 156). 

There is one point, and it is, in my judgment, the 
most important of all that should be noticed, when we 
consider the comparative influence of the two Religions 
on the material prosperity of nations ; Religion is most 
intimately and necessarily connected with the morality 
of a people ; whether it affects their wealth or not, has 
no weight whatever, in view of this essential element of 
true civilization and progress. Wealth and progress are 
transient, and more properly, the accidental accompani- 
ments of national prosperity ; but sound morality and 
manly character are the very heart's blood of a nation's 
solid greatness. 

I have already quoted, in the first chapter of this 
book, the remarkable words of M. Jules Simon on this 
point, but they are worth repeating here. " It is not 
the loss of a battle, and the annihilation of an army, or a 
province torn away, that begins the fall of a people : a 
people dies only by the relaxation of its morals, by 
abandoning its manly habits, by the effacement of its 
character through the invasion of egoism and scepticism. 
It dies of its corruption. It does not die of its wounds." 

If we apply statistics to that element of morality which 
constitutes its very " heart of hearts," the purity of its 
womanhood and the holiness of the family tie, the con- 
trast between Catholic and Protestant countries, as shown 
by "facts and figures," is positively startling, in its 
uniformity. 

I know it is said that statistics may be brought forward 
in favor of any theory. But when they are not confined 
to particular countries, nor subjected to the influence of 



AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 



295 



special causes, when they are extended to all countries, 
and tested, year after year, under all the varying condi- 
tions of social existence, and are found to be unvaryingly 
constant, they are a demonstration beyond reasonable 
dispute. 

I mean to apply this delicate test very briefly; but 
viewed however briefly, they are certainly most remark- 
able in the evidence they furnish of the superior morality 
of Catholic countries. Take the data, supplied, by the 
Registrar-General's returns, of the proportions between 
legitimate and illegitimate births in England, Ireland, 
and Scotland, and it will be seen that I am not exaggerat- 
ing, when I say, that the result is marvellously constant. 
It is, on an average, about the following. 

In England, between five and six in every hundred 
registered births, (every one knows the sort of births that 
are registered with most regularity, and where the bal- 
ance of non-registration will incline). In Scotland, the 
most Protestant of the three kingdoms, nine per cent, 
and in Ireland between two and three per cent. 

And, as I have compared Ulster with Connaught, in 
the matter of wealth and prosperity, I test them on the 
ground of morality as well ; and find the same constant 
result. West of Ireland, one and one third per cent ; in 
Ulster between five and six per cent. 

From the tables before me, I might show that the pro- 
portion is steadily the same throughout Europe ; the 
countries that are Protestant, showing, in this respect, a 
remarkably higher average than Catholic countries. Thus 
in Saxony, and Wurtemberg, the average is about sixteen ; 
while, in Catholic Prussia, it scarcely exceeds six. 

It is hard to resist the conclusion, that the Religion of 
the people is the cause of the discrepancy. In Catholic 



296 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND PROSPERITY. 



countries, as in France and Ireland, the most Catholic 
districts stand best in the statistics. Thus, while the rate 
for all France is 7.8, the rate for the rural districts, 
which are all Catholic, is 4.2 ; for La Vendee, which is 
remarkable for the earnestness of the Faith of its people, 
2.2 ; and for equally Catholic Brittany, 1.2. In England, 
the rural districts stand lowest in the scale of morality. 

The same holds good in Germany, the Catholic dis- 
tricts are the purest ; Catholic Westphalia and Rhineland 
about 3.5 ; and Protestant Pomerania and Brandenburg 
10 to 12. But for the Infidel corruption of Paris, and 
some of the chief cities of France, " the eldest daughter 
of the Church" would still hold a high rank in morality. 

I believe this evidence is irresistible, as the rule holds 
good throughout. Hence I conclude, the impartial 
reader will infer, that the old Church, protecting now as 
ever, as far as civil Governments will allow her, the 
virtue of her children, by rigid and unyielding principles, 
beyond all other Religions, favors the cause of real 
healthy Progress. 

In the next chapter, I mean to treat of a subject, which 
has been touched on before, the doctrine of "Exclusive 
Salvation," which perhaps, more than any other, by 
misapprehension or misrepresentation, has excited bitter 
feelings against Catholic Christianity. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SALVATION. 297 



CHAPTER XV. 
Catholic Christianity and Exclusive Salvation. 

IF there be one subject more than another that ex- 
cites hostility against the Catholic Church, it is her 
doctrine of " Exclusive Salvation." " The Catholic 
Church," says its enemies of all creeds or of no creed, " is 
intolerant. She condemns all who differ from her to 
eternal destruction. This is a patent fact," they continue, 
" which cannot be denied or glossed over ; and this fact 
alone proves, beyond doubt, that she forfeits every claim 
to be the true Church of Christ. If there is anything 
really and unquestionably good in Revelation, it is the 
spirit of charity and universal brotherhood, which it pro- 
fesses to announce to mankind. All men are irresistibly 
drawn to admire this noble principle. It is the heart and 
soul of natural Religion : it covers, with its splendid 
mantle, the errors and defects of Paganism ; it exalts 
every belief that adopts it, above the contemptible jar- 
rings and inconsistencies of sectarian animosity. They 
who worship Nature, in her simple grandeur, aim chiefly 
at uniting all classes of men, in their reverence and 
affection, for these charms that win without effort their 
admiration, and the homage of their hearts. The old 
idolatry, which cherished only the personification of 
these charms, knew no restrictions over the feelings of 
its votaries. Whether they worshipped the bright sun, 
or the gentle moon, or the deities that were imagined 
to preside over the beauties of earth, or the fascinations 



298 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



of human passion, it was all the same to this bountiful 
mistress. Christianity even, outside the Church, soon 
learned to hate the bitter strife, which sprung from the 
earnestness and intensity of devotion to particular forms ; 
and sought to harmonize all discordant voices in one 
hymn of praise to the Author of their salvation. The 
stern voice of Catholic Christianity alone disturbs this 
universal tendency ; and loudly proclaims, now as ever, 
that there is no peace, either here or hereafter, for those 
who refuse to bow down, and adore whatever she is 
pleased to set up as the object of their reverence and 
belief." 

I admit, without any attempt at defence, this sweeping 
charge. I say it is quite true. The Church does actually 
teach, now, as ever since her foundation, that there is but 
one true Religion, one true Faith, and that out of this 
Religion, and without this Faith, " it is impossible to 
please God." 

But I go further, and declare my solemn conviction to 
be, that if this were not her teaching, she should cease to 
be the Church established by our Divine Lord, " as the 
pillar and ground of truth." If this be stigmatized as 
intolerance, nevertheless I maintain it is the essential 
characteristic of unfailing truth, and of "Charity that 
never falleth away." 

Though the thoughts and feelings of the world have 
associated all sorts of disagreeable and hateful ideas with 
this word — intolerance, it is, after all, when properly 
understood, the great law of being for everything that is 
fixed and stable in this world. 

Take that great law of gravitation, which keeps the 
vast universe together, which reaches, with mathematical 
precision, to the uttermost bounds of space, and holds, as 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 299 

far as we can see, all created things within its grasp ; is 
it not intolerant? Will it ever, even in the minutest 
things of earth, allow its principles to be violated without 
enforcing the destruction of whatever attempts to defy 
its government, or to rebel against its power? Watch 
it in the ordinary ways of life, attempt to build a house, 
to raise the most pigmy of structures with which child- 
hood would amuse itself, not in defiance of this universal 
law, nor in contempt of what it teaches, but in simple 
ignorance of its inexorable rules, and the building of 
brick, or stone, or mud, or sand, or cards, must inevitably 
fall to pieces. 

Every law has its sanction : and this sanction is, that 
the violation of the law brings, with its violation, the loss 
of the benefit, which it is meant to confer. The sanction 
of the law of gravitation is stability: violate it either 
knowingly or ignorantly, and there is, in the particular 
instance, ruin and destruction for the object attempted. 

It is the same with all human laws. They are meant 
to secure the protection of those subject to them. If 
they are violated, society suffers, by the loss of the secur- 
ity provided for in the case : and the individual, or those 
who combine unlawfully and attempt to carry the object, 
forfeit the protection, and incur the punishment of the 
law that has been outraged. It would in fact be impos- 
sible to conceive anything like law in nature, or among 
men, if there were not necessarily involved, in the very 
notion, what we call intolerance. 

It is just the same with truth. Error is opposed to 
truth, and destroys the very idea of truth ; and therefore, 
truth is intolerant of error. It is silly, in the presence of 
acknowledged truth, to speak tolerantly of those follies 
and fancies, with which men have amused themselves in 



300 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



the days of Paganism, or with which they trifle now, in 
the attractive ways of sentimental conventionalities. 
They can afford to differ, without bringing on them- 
selves the consequences of outraged truth, when there is 
no question whatever of truth in reality, but only of con- 
ceits that ape the truth and trifle with the imagination. 

The old Romans could afford a place in their temples 
to the Gods of the conquered nations ; because they had, 
in their impiety, and love of sensuous pleasure, and idola- 
try of self, wandered far away from the source of all 
truth, and disported themselves amid the turbid waters, 
which had escaped from the fountain-head. One little 
streamlet was as good as another, why then should they 
trouble themselves with endless disputes, when all agreed 
that none had exclusive possession of the clear water, 
which alone could satisfy their wants ? 

If we apply these principles to Religion, it will be evi- 
dent, that a Religion which is not intolerant, in the sense 
I have explained, will be no Religion at all. For what is 
the meaning of Religion, even in its widest extent ? Is 
it not the means by which, the relations, which should 
exist between the Creator and the creature, are main- 
tained ? 

Before the advent of Christianity, as taught by our 
Divine Lord, all thoughtful men knew well, and felt, in 
their own experience, that these relations had been dis- 
turbed, and interrupted. Religion alone could re-estab- 
lish them. 

The most hopeful sign in fallen humanity, before the 
coming of the true light, was the continual groping in 
darkness, after these broken and lost links in the great 
chain of existence, between contingent beings and the 
centre of their existence. More hopeful still were the 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



301 



precious things tliat were offered in sacrifice to the source 
of life, conceived either in its unity or in its manifold 
attributes, as one God, or as many, in the expectation 
fondly cherished, that a time would come at last, when, 
in the dawn of the long-wished-for light, the missing 
links might be found, and men might be again united 
with the great Author of their existence. 

This is clearly the simplest notion that can be given of 
Religion. Either there is such a thing in the world, or 
there is not. If there is not, if man must despair of ever 
finding a means whereby he may be united to his Maker ; 
then there is no use in discussing what are the necessary 
and essential qualities of Religion. If there is, it would 
be worse than absurd to admit in this Religion, a prop- 
erty that is necessarily destructive of its very essence. If 
it be the way of bringing us to God, then it cannot, at 
the same time, lead us away from God. The right way 
cannot be the wrong way. Therefore, from the very 
nature of the case, true Religion must be exclusive and 
intolerant. 

I do not, of course, mean to say that it must persecute, 
or punish those who will not submit to its guidance : but 
it must be intolerant in this sense, that, once it believes 
itself, beyond all doubt, to be the way that leads to God, 
it must, as far as it can, point out the misleading charac- 
ters of every way that diverges from it. 

If men can be saved without Religion, or reach God, 
and the end of their being without any way to guide 
them, then one Religion is as useless as another ; and we 
may fall back on the nothingness of Atheism and Impiety, 
as far as any creed or form of worship is concerned. 

To adopt the system approved of by the professors of 
the " new theology," we should, as far as any Religion in 



302 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



the true sense is concerned, give ourselves no concern 
whatever about it. The simple and the easy way to go 
through life, is, in this hypothesis, to make the most of 
this world, while we are in it, and as regards the life to 
come, to lie down comfortably, on the day of rest, and 
smoke a quiet pipe, as we gaze listlessly on the bright 
skies above us, and dream of bliss, as we are borne on 
imperceptibly to eternity. 

I have seen this clolce far niente notion of Religion in- 
culcated in some book of the Leyden school, which I was 
told was largely read on the Frontier. And, though its 
easy-going thoroughness may provoke a smile, it is, after 
all, the only reasonable outcome of the fashionable theory, 
that one Religion is as good as another : and that, with- 
out giving ourselves any trouble to find out the right way 
that leads to God, we may take any path, which the acci- 
dent of birth, or nationality, or fortune, throws in our 
way. 

I can easily understand that men, who fancy they do 
not believe in a personal God, and do not consequently 
trouble themselves with misgivings about the account 
they are to render after death, or who adopt " the bag 
of bones" theory — may satisfy their frivolous thoughts 
about Religion with this notion. But it would seem in- 
credible, if it were not the fact, that Christians could 
possibly reconcile their consciences to this happy-go-lucky 
plan of action for securing " the one thing necessary." 

There are very many outside the Catholic Church, in- 
deed I might say the majority of those who have no dog- 
matic faith, and no fixed rule of morality, who affect to 
reason thus. " All Christians believe that we cannot come 
to God except through Jesus Christ. We all believe in 
our Divine Saviour. It may be that one way of realizing 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



303 



the fruits of Redemption is shorter, and more direct than 
another; but all the highways and by- ways, offered by 
different forms of Religion, lead to the same goal ; and 
please God, we shall all, Christians of every denomina- 
tion, and perhaps even Roman Catholics, meet in Heaven.' 5 
What seems to give this theory of salvation a peculiar 
charm, is that it looks large, and open to every one, and 
has no crooked and sharp ugly twists of intolerance about 
it. 

But this is not Religion, even in its plain and obvious 
sense ; roads that lead in contrary directions, and cross 
each other at right angles, cannot possibly lead to the 
one point. Christ has said " I am the way and the truth, 
and the life ;" " No man cometh to the Father but by 
me 5 ' (John xiv. 6). As the pious author of the " Imita- 
tion" says on this passage " sine via non itur, sine veri- 
tate non cognoscitur, sine vita non vivitur" — without 
the way, there is no going ; without the truth, there is no 
knowing ; without the life, there is no living (Imitation, 
Chap. lvi. Book iii.). Separated as we are from God 
by the fall, we require a certain way that will lead to 
Him ; a revelation of His truth to know Him, and a 
participation of the Divine life or Divine Grace, to 
enable us to profit by this truth, and to sustain us on the 
long and narrow way, " that leadeth to life" (Matt, vii 
14). 

Above all, we require a determined and fixed path, 
which does not insensibly lead into others, and which 
always is the right path, and not the w T rong one. 

To say that one Religion is as good as another, and that 
the thousand different ways, on which Christians of dif- 
ferent denominations are tramping, will all lead to the 
one eternal life, is the same thing as to say, that all Re- 



304 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



ligions are useless. In this system of general and abso- 
lute toleration, which supposes that a man will be saved, 
whether he turns to the right or to .the left, whether he 
goes forward, or gradually inclines to one side, until lie 
turns his back on the object towards which he meant to 
travel, all Religion, as a road to God, is completely 
effaced. 

However confidently " the liberal-minded " Protestant 
may imagine that he has, by this self-destructive sys- 
tem of Religion, shut out from his belief, the notion of 
anything like intolerance, he has by no means got rid of 
it. It haunts him, like the ghost of the Religion he has 
murdered. lie must still, unless he has renounced 
Christianity altogether, maintain, as rigidly as the most 
exclusive Catholic, that without Jesus Christ, there is no 
salvation. 

Even the Deist too, must be exclusive and intolerant ; 
for unless he holds firmly that natural Religion and the 
belief in a personal God is necessary to salvation, he 
would cease to be a Deist. It is a remarkable fact, that 
Deists join heartily with Protestants, in this extravagant 
charge of cruel and uncharitable exclusiveness, against the 
Catholic Church : for it proves conclusively that neither 
one nor the other, if they believe at all in these principles 
of general toleration, have anything to distinguish their 
belief from the nothingness of Atheisni. If Atheism is 
tolerant of all beliefs, it is at least consistent. It is blank 
nothing in itself ; and cannot therefore destroy what 
never had any real existence. 

When will Christians clearly understand that belief in 
Christ necessarily involves faith in Him, as the only way, 
the only truth, the only life that leads to life eternal : 
and if it be said by our Divine Lord, " This is life 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 305 

everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent 55 (John xvii. 
3), this knowledge necessarily includes the belief in all 
things He has taught. " Go," He said to His Apostles, 
"and teach all nations, teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you 55 (Matt, xxviii. 
19, 20), 

I know it is said, that intolerance of any kind is op- 
posed to human liberty. 

But it might as well be argued, that the intolerance of 
the civil law, which as the embodiment of the natural 
law, is the very basis of human liberty, is destructive of 
this liberty. For what is the very essence of this civil 
liberty ? It is the power which it gives to every member 
of the community, of doing what he has a right to do. 
But if this civil law is not inflexible and intolerant, what 
becomes of this right ? If the civil law is not supreme 
over all, it is a nullity. If even the ruler of a state, or 
his representatives, may twist the law at their caprice, 
there is an end of anything like individual right. 

So it would be with the Church, if it were not firm 
and unyielding, in the maintenance of the conditions of 
salvation. If Faith in all the doctrines of Christ be 
necessary to salvation, then all who desire to be saved, 
must believe, either explicitly or implicitly, these doc- 
trines. If the moral law established by the Founder of 
the Church is to bind, it must bind all who are capable 
of obedience. There cannot be one sort of morality for 
this class, and another for another. The Church, in other 
words, must be intolerant, or she will forfeit her Divine 
right to rule us, and make a mockery of our liberties. 

The more inflexible she is, in preaching and teaching 
what is right and true — for it must be understood that. 



306 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



in speaking of intolerance all along, I am contending 
only for the intolerance of truth and right — the more 
faithfully and successfully will she protect her children, 
from the tyranny of error and immorality. This is the 
meaning of the words of our Divine Lord, addressed to 
those He calls " His disciples indeed," " You shall know 
the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John viii. 
32). 

Here is a notion of true liberty, in the eloquent words 
of Cardinal Manning. "Liberty is not license; liberty 
is not the freedom of madmen ; liberty is not the power 
to do wrong, nor to believe falsehood, nor to err out of 
the way of justice. Liberty means redemption from sin, 
from falsehood, from human teachers who may err, and 
therefore can mislead. It is redemption from all spiritual 
tyranny of man over man, with all his faculties, his in- 
tellect, his heart, his will, his affections ; it is redemption 
of the soul in all its actions towards God, in its obedience, 
in its faith, in its adoration of the Divine authority of 
Jesus Christ, who has purchased us with His Precious 
Blood, and has folded us within a Unity where falsehood 
cannot enter, under the Divine guidance of a Teacher 
who can never err. Such is true liberty, and there is no 
other" (" Temporal Glory of the Sacred Heart," Card. 
Manning, p. 177). 

I have thought it necessary to say so much on the prin- 
ciple of dogmatic or spiritual intolerance, because the 
subject is so overclouded by the prejudices of unbelief, 
and a false Christianity ; that, without this explanation, 
the practical doctrine of " Exclusive Salvation" would be 
misunderstood even by many Catholics. 

I come now to the point directly, which excites so 
much odium against Catholic Christianity, and to bring 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



307 



it out more clearly and distinctly, I will put it before my 
readers, somewhat in the form of question and answer. 

Is it a dogma of the Catholic Church that, outside her 
pale, there is no salvation ? — I answer distinctly — yes : 
the Catholic Church believes herself to be the true Church 
of Christ, and she would stultify herself if she did not 
maintain now, as she has done all days since her founda- 
tion, that those who do not belong to this true Church, 
cannot possibly expect salvation. The principles already 
laid down, necessarily, as all intelligent minds can see, 
lead to this conclusion. 

I will put the question more strongly, that there may 
be no misunderstanding on the point. I will suppose it 
said to me, Do you believe that none but members of 
the Roman Catholic Church will be saved ? I answer, If 
by the Roman Catholic Church you mean, as you ought 
to mean, the universal Church spread throughout the 
world, and recognizing the Pope of Rome, as the succes- 
sor of St. Peter, and the visible representative of Christ, 
I believe, that none but the members of this Church can 
expect salvation. 

I suppose the question pressed still farther. Do you 
believe that only those who are known as Roman Catho- 
lics, or who are externally united to this body by belief 
and profession, will obtain salvation? — I answer, I be- 
lieve nothing of the kind. As there are many who call 
themselves Roman Catholics, and are generally regarded 
as such, who by their disobedience to the Church, by 
their want of Faith, and immoral conduct, will be lost 
eternally ; so there are many, very many, who, though 
not united to the Roman Catholic Church, by any exter- 
nal bond of union, are, by their Baptism, their sincere 
love for God, their earnest desire to know the truth, and 



308 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



their determination to embrace it, when known, at every 
sacrifice of worldly things, — really members of this true 
Church. These I believe, if they lead blameless lives, or 
repent sincerely of their sins, and look for pardon, 
through the merits of Jesus Christ, will be saved. 

But suppose, it may be said, they were not baptized by 
a Roman Catholic priest, will this prevent their salva- 
tion ? I answer — no : if they have been duly baptized 
by any one, a Catholic layman or woman, or a Protestant 
minister, or a Protestant man not a minister, or a Protes- 
tant woman, or even by a Jew, or an Infidel, who, pour- 
ing water on the head of the person to be baptized, said 
at the same time, " I baptize thee in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," meaning 
seriously to perform a rite, considered necessary for salva- 
tion by the Catholic Church, that baptism is valid. They 
who are baptized in this way, are made members of the 
true Church of Christ. 

Here I cannot help remarking that the expression 
" the Church of my baptism" has no meaning whatever, 
if the Church so referred to, is not the true Church of 
Christ. It could have no meaning, for Christians who 
understand the plain signification of the words "One 
Lord, one Faith, one Baptism" (Ephes. iv. 5). 

But suppose there was no Baptism at all ? Then the 
unfortunate individual " could not enter into the King- 
dom of God " (John iii. 5). This is of Faith, and cannot 
be denied without heresy. Only two cases are admitted 
by the Catholic Church, in which actual Baptism with 
water is not absolutely necessary to salvation. The Bap- 
tism of blood, where one dies a martyr ; and the Baptism 
of desire, where one desires to receive the holy rite, and 
there is no one near to confer it. 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



309 



But my supposed questioner, will say. Do you believe 
that the vast number of persons who have not received 
Baptism, innocent children, natives of a country not 
Christian, and millions of others, for some cause or other 
not baptized, are condemned to eternal torments ? I an- 
swer, It is of Faith that they cannot enjoy the beatific 
vision, merited for us by Christ's death, unless they re- 
ceive actual Baptism of water, or the Baptism of desire, 
or die for Christ's sake. 

I may here mention, a fact known to most Christians, 
that, in the early days of persecution, many Pagan sol- 
diers, struck by the admirable constancy of the Christian 
martyrs, or the supernatural signs of Divine approval, so 
often manifested at their martyrdom, voluntarily offered 
their lives in testimony of their entire faith in the God 
of the Christians. 

As regards infants, not baptized with water, they are 
of course incapable of the Baptism of desire ; they cannot 
therefore enter into the Kingdom of God. But, as St. 
Augustine teaches, and as every Catholic may believe, 
the fate of these children in the next life is such a one, 
that it cannot be said of them — " it were better they 
were never born." We may believe, that, although 
they can never see the face of God, immortality is 
in their case a positive boon compared with non-exis- 
tence. 

With regard to the natives of a country not Christian, 
who have perhaps never heard of Christ or Baptism, if 
they live according to the law of nature, and are faithful 
to the common and sufficient grace given to all men, 
which, as I said, in the chapter on Grace, is most prob- 
ably the gift of prayer, they by the implicit desire of 
Baptism, may obtain admittance into the kingdom of 



310 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



God. Such is the more sound and common opinion of 
Theologians. 

As the learned Bourdaloue says : " It is well known 
that a pagan, to whom the law of J esus Christ has never 
been announced, will not be judged by this law ; and that 
God, Sovereign Master as He is of all things, will observe 
witli him this natural equity, and not condemn him on 
account of a law which He has never made known to him. 
This is the doctrine which St. Paul announces in formal 
terms, when he says, 4 Whosoever have sinned without 
the law, shall perish without the law ' " (Rom. ii. 12). 

I will propose another question, which will be the last 
in this delicate matter. AYhat will be the fate, according 
to Catholic doctrine, of those Christians, who having 
broken away from the Church by heresy and schism, die 
in their errors ? 

The answer is simple, they who wilfully separate from 
the true Church, and die actually separated from her com- 
munion, cannot expect salvation. Their crime is a great 
one. It is classed by St. Paul with the most grievous 
sins, with " the works of the flesh, fornication, unclean- 
ness, immodesty, luxury, and idolatry, and even, murder." 
They who make dissensions and sects . . . " shall not 
obtain the kingdom of God " (Gal. v. 19, 21). Obsti- 
nate heretics are those who refuse to hear the Church : 
and our Divine Lord said in reference to them, "If such 
a one will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the 
heathen and the publican" (Matt, xviii. 17). 

But it must be remembered, that there is a vast differ- 
ence between those who, by their own act separate from 
the Church, and obstinately refuse to obey her voice, and 
those who have the misfortune to be born in a false com- 
munion. If through want of diligent inquiry, when they 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



311 



are doubtful of their position ; if through attachment to 
the world, or place in society, or friends, or their own 
worldly interests, they give themselves no concern about 
the conditions of salvation ; if, in a word, they love even 
those dearest to them according to the flesh, more than 
Jesus Christ, they are, according to the express words of 
our Divine Lord, undeserving of the glory He has merited 
for us. " He that loveth father or mother more than me ; 
and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not 
worthy of me" (Matt. x. 37). 

There is no greater enemy to the attainment of truth 
than indifference. If a man will say to himself, " Differ- 
ences of creed do not concern me. I do not want to be 
better than my parents. What was good enough for 
them, is good enough for me. I believe that they served 
God faithfully according to their lights, and died in peace 
with Him. I desire no more. Far be it from me to say 
that they are lost. If I changed my Religion, I would 
pronounce, by this act, their condemnation." 

All such sentiments are directly opposed to the Chris- 
tian maxim of individual responsibility. " Every one of 
us shall render account for himself to God " (Horn. xiv. 
12). Those whom men most reverence may have erred 
through no fault of theirs, and so escape blame before 
God. Their involuntary error will however not excuse 
others who have found reason to doubt the security of 
their own position. 

Even saints have erred. St. Cyprian maintained an 
opinion, which was afterwards condemned by the voice 
of the universal Church. He might have been altogether 
innocent ; but after the decision of the Church, those 
who. for reverence for his virtues, clung to his error, were 
justly regarded as heretics. This led the celebrated Vin~ 



312 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



cent of Lerins to say, " Absolvnntur magistri, condem- 
nantur discipuli " — " The masters are absolved, and the 
disciples are condemned" (Vincent Lerin, Coinmonitor, 
cap. vi.). 

One thing is quite certain, and it should be answer 
enough to all these miserable subterfuges by which men, 
careless about " the one thing necessary," seek to justify 
supreme indifference about their eternal destiny, and at 
the same time it vindicates from all reproach, the doctrine 
of the Church on " Exclusive Salvation." " God will ren- 
der to every one according to his works" (Matt. xvi. 27), 
and will take account only of our voluntary transgres- 
sions. 

There may be many brought up in false doctrine, and 
tilled with the strongest prejudices against the Catholic 
Church, — prejudices so inveterate and deep-seated, that 
they would rather doubt their own existence than call 
them into question. I have myself spoken with many 
converts, now earnest and holy priests, and they assured 
me that, until the light of Faith, through God's infinite 
mercy, beamed on their troubled souls, they conscien- 
tiously believed, that it would have been a crime in them 
to have looked towards the Roman Catholic Church, for 
help in their distress ; so deeply did they consider her 
sunk in corruption. They who have read Cardinal Xew- 
man's "Apologia" and seen how long even his giant 
mind was held in bondage by the belief that the Pope 
was Antichrist, can understand fully the slavery of preju- 
dice. 

For a considerable time, it may be, the ignorance of 
men of this class, who are led astray from the main point 
by questions of captious criticism, may be, and probably 
is, invincible : but the moment the great grace came and 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



313 



their eyes were opened, they sacrificed all worldly pros- 
pects, and severed the closest ties that bound them to the 
Church of their fathers, and friends dear as life, to join 
" the one fold," to which all must be brought who ear- 
nestly seek their eternal salvation (John x. 16). 

There may be very many earnest Christians, who never 
receive so great a grace as this, and who live and die in 
invincible ignorance. They would willingly lay down 
their lives for Christ's sake. They hate sin, because it 
displeases God ; and they pray fervently for light and 
strength to do His holy will. Such as these belong, as 
St. Augustine says, to the soul of the true Church, though 
not externally united to it. They will be saved, we may 
believe, even though it required a miracle of Divine 
mercy to enable them to fulfil the necessary conditions 
for salvation. They may be saved in this way, and at 
the same time the proposition be perfectly true, and a 
dogma of Catholic Faith, that out of the true Church 
there is no salvation. 

It is not invincible ignorance that saves them, for this 
is only a valid excuse for an involuntary fault ; but the 
grace of Baptism, and the habit of Divine Faith, infused 
by this sacrament, their firm belief in all the doctrines of 
Christ, that, humanly speaking, it was possible for them 
to know, and their earnest desire to do the will of God in 
all things. Invincible ignorance will not heal the wounds 
inflicted on their souls by sin ; but sorrow for the love of 
God, a firm purpose of amendment, and hope in the infi- 
nite merits of the Redeemer. Such as these are not here- 
tics or schismatics ; they are real members of the one true 
Church. 

The eloquent and large-hearted Lacordaire has said of 
these — " Her children (the Church's) they are, although 



314 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



she knows them not ; for they have been born in her 
womb, and still live in her substance, as they have sprung 
from her fecundity." 

This is the teaching of St. Augustine. " We must not 
place in the class of heretics," says this great Saint, 
" even those whose errors are most pernicious, provided 
they do not defend them obstinately, especially if these 
errors are not the fruit of their own presumption, and 
their own rashness ; but rather inherited from the misfor- 
tune of their fathers, who allowed themselves to be led 
astray, and who earnestly seek after truth, and are pre- 
pared to abandon their errors, as soon as they perceive 
them" (St. Augustine, Letter xliii. to Galarius). 

If I were asked to be more definite, and to point out 
those who are in good faith, and in a state of invincible 
ignorance, whether they are numerous, whether such and 
such persons, who, as far as their friends could see, died 
in a belief different from the Catholic Church, are lost, I 
would say, as every well-instructed Catholic must say, I 
know nothing about the fate of individuals. It is God 
alone who sees the secret of hearts. No one can tell 
what passes, at the last moment, between the soul and 
God. That cry to God for mercy, which He has made the 
instinctive impulse of suffering human nature, when all 
other hope has faded away ; and which can spring from the 
heart, when the power of speech is gone, may change the 
eternal destiny of the expiring creature. It is certain 
that judgment belongs to God alone ; and that we dare 
not say, of any one, though his whole life may have been 
polluted with sin, that he is lost for all eternity. " Who 
art thou that judgest another man's servant ? to his own 
master he standeth or f alleth ; and he shall stand : for 
God is able to make him stand " (Rom. xiv. 4). 



AND EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



315 



It is the duty of the Church to proclaim concerning the 
law of salvation — there is but one true Faith, as there is 
but one Lord, and one Baptism ; and without this true 
Faith, " it is impossible to please God :" " He that be- 
lieveth not shall be condemned." If the world regards 
this as a hard saying, it should remember, that it is not 
the word of man, but the sovereign decree of Him, 
through whose Infinite mercy alone, we can hope for 
eternal life. 

In the next chapter, and before I say something about 
the various " isms," that amuse the fancy of the present 
generation, I mean to set forth briefly the principles, on 
which Catholic Christianity combats the objections so 
flippantly urged by Infidelity against the facts recorded 
in the Old Testament. 



310 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

Catholic Christianity and the Alleged Errors of 
the Sacred Scriptures. 

TT is obvious that, in one short chapter, little can be 
said in reply to the numerous objections, which unbe- 
lief has at all times urged against the sacred books of the 
Old and New Testament. Still, I believe, it will not be 
difficult to point out the principles, on which simple 
Faith can rest securely, in encountering all these assaults 
of error. 

As I have already said, in the commencement of this 
book, most of the infidel objections are of very early date 
in the history of Catholic Christianity ; those of the 
present day differing from the old objections of Julian, 
Celsus, Porphyry and the Pagan Philosophers, only in 
this, that they are either decked out in a new dress, likely 
to catch the fancy, and excite the amusement of this 
frivolous age ; or supported by arguments derived from 
scientific progress, and unknown to the early Christian 
apologists. 

Ridicule is no doubt a potent weapon against any truth, 
that is disagreeable to human nature, and which by its 
solemn and venerable aspect, rather than its solid grounds 
of persuasion, appeals to our respect. When the Divine 
wisdom, incarnate in the person of our Redeemer, w T as 
dressed in the garb of a fool, even the majesty of His 
patient silence, and His sublime meekness, produced 
little effect on the courtiers of the proud monarch, who, 
out of vain curiosity, asked for a sign of Almighty power, 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 317 

only that lie might, in his fancied superior wisdom, deride 
the folly of the multitudes who believed in " the con- 
temptible Nazarene." 

"See," exclaim the leaders of Progress, "how little 
these Fathers, so long respected for their learning by the 
ignorant crowds of the dark ages, knew of the true nature 
of ' signs and wonders,' who would have bowed down 
and worshipped a steam-engine, and beheld angelic spirits 
at work in the ordinary operations of our telegraphs and 
telephones, and the various applications of electricity." 

I wonder if these eagles of physical science, who plume 
themselves on the triumphs of patient, plodding, inven- 
tive industry, and soar aloft, in the conceit that they are 
the rulers of nature, ever think that, when they exultingly 
point to the material progress of these latter times, and 
regard themselves as the Gods of creation, that the great 
master-minds of past ages would only smile in pity, 
were they to witness the vast importance attached, by 
men created for eternity, to these trifles. How they 
would wonder — these giant intellects, who dared to fix 
their penetrating glance on the bright sun of the Divine 
nature, and to solve the problems of Eternal life, at the 
indifference which now prevails for the investigation of 
these grand subjects which absorbed their own life-long 
reverence and love ! 

There is a thought that naturally strikes me here, and 
it will be a good introduction to my subject. One of the 
main objections to the first pages of Revelation, a very 
favorite one too, as it is supposed, in a special manner to 
elevate " Humanity" to its proper throne, as the Divinity 
of the cultured races, and the supreme ruler of Nature 
and her laws, is the short period allowed, by the Mosaic 
narrative, to the existence of man upon this earth. 



318 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 

If the long days of creation, involving perhaps myriads 
of years, in the development of the works assigned, by 
the inspired writer, to each of these periods, passed 
slowly along, uncontrolled by Humanity, what became 
of the Idol all this time? The bare notion that man, 
" The lord and sovereign master," was a mere nothing, 
not yet even conceived in the womb of time, while his 
slaves, in the shape of the huge Behemoths and Levia- 
thans, disported their happy lives away, is too humiliating 
to be endured. Therefore the various ologies, the crea- 
tions of modern progress, are turned from their legiti- 
mate scope — and pressed into the service of the offended 
" Deity." Theories are heaped on theories, to establish, 
the much desired, and satisfactory deduction, that man 
was in his proper sphere, as Lord of the creation, whole 
ages, perhaps millions of years, before he is introduced 
into this world by the writer of the Pentateuch. 

Suppose we make a great effort to reconcile the num- 
erous conflicting systems of Geologists, each of whom 
was of course far superior to Moses, and satisfied with 
the poor amount of evidence, that is evolved from this 
mill of learning, not excluding even " the fossilized hu- 
man skeleton," which some Geologists have the unkind- 
ness to say was manufactured, by an enterprising Ameri- 
can, we admit this great antiquity of the pre- Adamite 
man, what would follow ? 

Let us reason on the sound principles of analogical 
philosophy, whatever we may think of the Geological 
" facts," for mere theorizing is not reasoning, and what 
should be our conclusion ? 

Granted that man did live on this earth, and, from 
some secure cave, looked out on the gambols of the 
Ichthyosaurus, and his brother saurians of every degree, a 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 319 

much hardier individual, by the way, than any of the 
genus homo of degenerate historic times, one who could 
luxuriate in cataracts of boiling water, and exult in the 
music of those stupendous convulsions, the bare traces of 
which fill us with terror, — what then ? Unless his mind 
were dwarfed, in proportion to the development of his 
physical powers, he too must, on all sound principles of 
reasoning, have progressed marvellously in these almost 
infinite periods of existence. What is there in human 
nature that should have so contracted its powers of ob- 
servation and experience, as absolutely to have rendered 
progress impossible, in these prehistoric ages? These 
triumphs of modern civilization, steam, electricity, mag- 
netism, and all these things of which we are so proud, 
should, in the natural course of things, have been dis- 
covered long ago. If half a century can, in these times, 
change the face of the earth, and the ways and habits 
of its people, what immense progress should have been 
made in these thousands, and tens of thousands of years, 
when men, real men like us, intelligent beings, lived and 
toiled upon this earth! Yet there is not the smallest 
vestige of their labors. 

I can easily fancy to myself the amusement of some 
bright philosopher of progress, whose eye may be caught 
by this argument, as he positively revels in the enjoy- 
ment of my ignorance — " Look," he will exclaim, " was 
there ever such nonsense penned before ? Here is one 
writing something, which he expects will be read by 
people of ordinary intelligence, and he seems to know 
absolutely nothing of the grand discovery of the age — 
Evolution. Evolution explains at once all this difficulty. 
You know," he continues, addressing himself to some 
disciple, who has shared his mirth, " the men of these 



320 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



early times were not properly speaking men at all : they 
were human beings only in the germ, mere animated 
cells, or later on, shell-fish, or swimming fish, and then 
fish without tails, whose fins were being gradually devel- 
oped into arms and legs and feet, as they fed on the 
slimy shores of lakes and rivers, or in fact were proxi- 
mately connected with the present species, in the form 
of apes and baboons, or what not." 

The fatal answer however to these extravagant theories, 
which remind us of the words of St. Paul, applied by the 
Apostle to the dreamers of his day — " senseless men I" 
(1 Cor. xv. 36,) is to be found in the fact that, in no 
stratum of the earth, has there been found, the fossilized 
remains of a creature marking, in its formation, this 
transition. Any one possessed of a glowing imagination 
may easily theorize ; but the most attractive theories, un- 
supported by a single fact, vanish, in the analysis of wak- 
ing reason, like " the baseless fabric of a Vision." 

Here I would lay down one safe principle, in dealing 
with these fanciful objections, which have no foundation 
except in the heated brains that conceive them. Until 
some fact can be demonstrated, as against the teaching 
recorded in the Bible, it is worse than loss of time, to 
give it the least serious attention. 

Even, at their best, the scientific teachers of irreligion 
can only excite doubts with regard to any portion of the 
Scripture narrative. This is the confession of their great 
oracle, whom I remember designated, in the " Old Eelig- 
ion" tract of Theology, as " Vafemmus Bayle" — one of 
those, of whom it is written, " I will catch the wise in 
their own craftiness" (1 Cor. hi. 19). He says — "Those 
who live in irreligion do nothing but doubt. They never 
attain to certainty. Even when they are most agreed, 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 321 



they create, in the minds of their disciples, only doubt. 
It is clear enough," he continues, " that they who affect 
in company to combat the most common truths of Relig- 
ion, say much more about it than they think, Yanity — 
rather than conviction, enters into their disputations. 
They imagine that the boldness and singularity of the 
sentiments they maintain, will secure for them the repu- 
tation of great minds" (Diet., torn. i. p. 561). 

" Harebrained and worthless men," says De Mon- 
taigne, " who strive to be worse than they really are" ! 

Earnest Christians, when they hear language of the 
kind, indicated by these writers, should remember, that 
the holy cause, which is thus stupidly assailed, is sus- 
tained by dogmas, and morality, and history, against 
which nothing can be demonstrated. They should con- 
sider, that the admirable life and death of the Author 
of Christianity is sustained by the Divine wisdom and 
sanctity of its precepts : and that the authority and sub- 
limity of the Holy Scriptures, the testimony of apostolic 
men, the blood of millions of martyrs, the accomplish- 
ment of numerous prophecies, the overwhelming testi- 
mony of miracles incontestably established, in the face 
of the severest criticism, the tradition of all ages, the 
conversion of the whole world, in spite of the most 
fearful persecution, the perpetuity of the Faith, not- 
withstanding so many heresies and schisms, and the 
immovable stability of the Catholic Church, in defiance 
of storms, that have shaken thrones to atoms, and con- 
spiracies and assaults, that would have upheaved any 
human institution, are proofs beyond all doubt, of the 
supernatural character and constitution of the work of 
Christ. When we think of these triumphs over all that 
is great in human estimation, we can but smile in pity at 



322 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



the daring impudence which fancies that, by sorry jests 
and ridicule and blatant nonsense, it can destroy " the 
pillar and ground of truth," against which, we are as- 
sured, by the promise of the God-man, not even the 
powers of Hell shall ever prevail. 

The fiercest of these assaults are self-destructive. We 
have only to marshal the sayings of men of the same 
camp against each other, or to bring forward the contra- 
dictions of the leaders ; and, as the hosts of Sennacherib, 
they melt away like snow, "in the glance of the Lord." 

Take for example, the well-known objection of Vol- 
taire against the Pentateuch. It might, regalvanized 
into life, be put as popularly and as plausibly as if it 
were advanced by Ingersoll, or any of the voluble and 
ready speakers, who appeal to an unthinking public, in 
jauntily-got-up lectures. 

" Moses," it is said, " wrote the Pentateuch, wrote it in 
the wilderness, without pens, ink, or paper, at a time 
when writing was unknown, and when those, who had 
the means of perpetuating their thoughts, caused them to 
be inscribed on pyramids of stone, in hieroglyphics, that 
offer even to the most learned, the bare substance of 
some scattered ideas ; wrote all the five books, which it 
would take one so long only to transcribe into modern 
language ! But of course it was a miracle ! And we 
must imagine something superior to modern spiritism, 
no doubt angelic hands, to supply the writing materials, 
and to act as his amanuenses." 

I am not aware that Ingersoll has ever put this objec- 
tion. But if he did borrow the thought of Voltaire, as 
he has borrowed so many similar objections, he would 
have put it in something of this style, but of course much 
more smartly. 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 323 



And what is the answer ? It is answered by the ob- 
jector himself. Voltaire never troubles himself, when 
he is assailing Religion, about palpable contradictions. 

In a book, called " Dieu et les homines" Voltaire says 
that a Phoenician author, named Sanchoniaton, lived bo- 
fore the time of Moses ; and that this writer admits, that 
he had derived part of his history from the writings of 
Thot, who flourished eight hundred years before his 
time ; and Voltaire adds naively, " This admission proves 
that, eight hundred years before the time of Sanchoniaton, 
there were books written by the aid of the alphabet." 

So much for this objection, which is a fair specimen 
of many others of the same kind. " Some forty years 
ago, it was still deemed possible for critics of the ultra- 
sceptical school," says a learned writer in the Dublin 
JBeview, " to call in question the very existence of the 
art of writing in the Mosaic age. The adventurous Von 
Bohlen, laid before his readers, what he was pleased to 
call, the ' latest results, 5 which the study of Palaeography 
yielded ; and with Vater, and Hartmann, to support him, 
boldly concluded, that the art was unknown to Moses ; 
and turned the allusions to writing, in the Pentateuch, 
against us, as anachronisms or Q unfortunate slips ' of the 
author. Mr. Norton, in America, made the same assump- 
tion one of the grounds of his own attack. 

"Yet to an Egyptologist of the present day, acquainted 
with still 'later results/ such scepticism can appear 
only ridiculous." 

I happen to have in the diocesan library here, in 
Grahamstown, the celebrated work of Dr. Smith on the 
Book of Moses, and there, note most interesting par- 
ticulars, that should cover with shame, any Infidel writer 
daring to make such unfounded assertions. 



324 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 

Dr. Smith shows that the process of writing is pic- 
torially represented on a rock tomb of the Fourth 
Dynasty (Moses lived in the Nineteenth Dynasty), 
accompanied with the constantly recurring hieroglyph 
for writing, the combination of reed-pen, water vase, and 
palette. In a papyrus of the time of Moses, Anastasi 
No. 1, we have the names of nine writers then distin- 
guished in theology, philosophy, history, and poetry. At 
the same period, we find proofs that there was a writer 
of books among the Kheta, in Northern Palestine. 

" But the most striking proof of the antiquity of writ- 
ing is found," Dr. Smith tells us, "in the fact that 
Semetic characters, signifying write, hook, ink, are com- 
mon to the Semetic people in prehistoric times, before 
they broke up into separate nationalities, as Chaldees, 
Syrians, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Arabs, or Ethiopians." 

But how few care, in these business-loving times, to 
study a subject of this kind ! It is a terra incognita, 
even for fairly educated people ; and hence there is little 
fear of being " brought to book," if a popular lecturer is 
disposed to indulge his playful fancy, in daring attacks, 
on the Veracity, or Authenticity of the sacred books. 

It was argued by Voltaire, that no such person as 
Moses ever existed, pretty much in the same way, but 
not with the same ability and cleverness, as, in later 
times, Archbishop Whately undertook to prove that 
there never existed the man called Napoleon Bonaparte. 

This would be amusing, if it did no mischief ; but 
there is so little taste for serious reading on points of this 
kind, and so great a rage for any theory that is new and 
startling, that if a lecturer, even in the presence of a 
numerous and select audience, prefaces the boldest as- 
sertions against the inspiration or truth of the Sacred 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 325 



Scriptures, with such words as, " It is now well known," 
or " It is now admitted by all scholars," or " It cannot be 
denied," few will be found to question, or perhaps doubt, 
what is so confidently stated. 

I will here lay down another principle, which will be a 
safe guide for all Catholics, and for all Christians who 
venerate " the Word of God." It is the principle of the 
great St. Augustine — " Ego vero Evangelis non crederem 
nisi me commoveret Ecclesiw auctoritasP " I would not 
believe in the Gospel itself, unless I was moved thereto 
by the authority of the Church." 

It may seem strange that I should venture to recom- 
mend this principle to non-Catholics. But the days are 
gone by, when " the testimony of the Spirit in the soul 
of the reader" and " the inner witness of the Spirit," and 
such like pious expressions, carry conviction to the minds 
of those who hear or read what Biblical criticism has to 
say about the authorship, or the authenticity of the sacred 
Books. 

As Mallock puts it — " The Church's primary doctrine 
is her own perpetual infallibility. She is inspired, she 
declares, by the same Spirit that inspired the Bible ; and 
her voice is, equally with the Bible, the voice of God." 
Without the infallible authority of the Church, we can- 
not know, with certainty, what is true Scripture, and 
what is not ; nor catch the hidden inspired meaning that 
lies under " the letter that killeth." Those who will not 
hear the Church, may be assured, that a time will surely 
come, when the bright and cheering prospects of their 
fondly cherished Faith, and the darling hopes that cheered 
the weary paths of life, and the glowing love for a God 
of infinite goodness and mercy, which they gleaned from 
the pages of the Bible, will vanish from the minds of the 



326 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



rising generation, like a dream, and leave not a rack be- 
hind. Sentimental Religion is too delicate a plant to 
stand the fierce blasts of cold scepticism. Religion must 
be built on a logical basis, or, in the wrestle of vigorous 
minds, it will surely be overturned ; and there is no other 
solid foundation than the Rock, indicated by our Divine 
Lord. 

But whatever non-Catholics may think of this, the true 
Catholic, will, in every temptation to his faith, raised up 
it may be, as time goes on, in appalling shapes, by the 
magic wand of impatient science, look to the Church, and 
confidently wait her infallible answer to the difficulty or 
objection, that, hailed by the applause of an unbelieving 
world, may at first startle his convictions. 

There is another principle, which is all-important in 
the conflict with Infidelity, and it is this, that we must 
never lose sight of the fact, that the Religion of the 
Catholic Church to-day, and the Religion of our first 
parents, and the Patriarchs before the flood, are most in- 
timately united. 

The Old and New Testaments form but part of the one 
great plan, before the Divine intelligence. One explains 
the other ; the Xew cannot be understood apart from the 
Old ; and the Old receives its perfection and accomplish- 
ment in the ISTew. 

When Infidels say tauntingly — "Are we to believe 
that the wonders recorded in Exodus, and the miracles of 
the Pentateuch were all wrought, for the benefit of a 
handful of people, inhabiting a mere corner of the world ?" 
they display only narrowness of view, and the blindness 
of obstinate prejudice. 

Judea was not a mere corner of the world, when the 
Jewish people existed as a compact nation. Viewing its 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 327 



position with regard to the great peoples of early times, 
the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Arabians, Chaldeans, and 
Assyrians, it was, considering the means of communica- 
tion then known, the very theatre on which to exhibit, 
to the whole world, the grand spectacle of the economy 
of Divine Providence, for the salvation of mankind. 
The wonders wrought amongst the Jewish people were 
not so much for their sakes ; but, as the Lord expressly 
declared to Moses, " that I may show my power in thee, 
and my name may be spoken of throughout all the earth" 
(Exod. ix. 16). 

This is most strikingly brought out in the prophecies 
of Moses. He tells the people, in his last discourse to 
them, that, if they are faithful to their laws, God will 
perform, in their behalf, miracles like those wrought in 
Egypt : and this we see verified, in the wonderful things 
accomplished by Josue, Sampson, Gideon, Ezechias, etc. 
He warns them of the scourges prepared for them, if 
they should rebel. They will be reduced to slavery, 
transported from their country, and scattered over the 
earth. How signally was this fulfilled in the captivity 
of Babylon ! And is it not even now, manifested to all 
eyes. He sees with prophetic vision every circumstance 
in their singular history, connected with, the great work 
for which they were chosen. 

All this is shown most distinctly, in the 28th chapter, 
and concludiDg chapters of Deuteronomy. He tells them 
they will have a king to rule over them, an event which 
came to pass four hundred years after ; and in the 18th 
chapter, 15th verse, he points out the great event, with 
which their wonderful history, as a people and nation, 
selected by the Almighty, to be the connecting bond be- 
tween the promise of a Redeemer to the first of the hu- 



328 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



man race, and its accomplishment in the person of the 
long-expected of nations. " The Lord thy God will raise 
up to thee a Prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren, 
like unto me, him thou shalt hear" (Deut. xviii. 15). 

Moses appears at the very time most suitable to con- 
nect, by the history of his people, the obscure begin- 
nings of the hun urn race with the vocation of the Gen- 
tiles, and the diffusion of the Gospel " to the uttermost 
bounds of the earth." He is near enough to the early 
Patriarchs, and to our first parents, to gather up the 
traditions of the primeval revelation, and the great events 
of the earliest history of the human family. 

Lamech, father of Noe, had seen Adam. Abraham 
had lived one hundred and fifty years with Sem, the Son of 
Noe. At the death of Abraham, Jacob was still young, 
but he was instructed by his father Isaac, who was still 
alive, when Jacob returned with his family from Mesopo- 
tamia. Moses had lived with his grandfather Caath, who 
had seen Jacob in Egypt. So that between Adam and 
Moses, five witnesses — Lamech, Sem, Abraham, Jacob and 
Caath, bring down, without interruption, the traditions 
of the first of the human race to Moses. 

What Moses received in this way, he briefly narrated. 
There is nothing in his record, that resembles the misty 
and shadowy tales which obscure the early histories of 
other nations. Events are bound together with the ties 
of family descent, that could not be mistaken. The his- 
tory of two thousand years, or from the creation of man 
to the birth of Abraham, is given in eleven chapters : there 
is no prolixity, no matters of trifling detail, only the great 
events, which must have stamped themselves indelibly on 
the memories of the witnesses. 

Moses does not attempt to enter upon subjects, that 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 329 



form the natural study for the exercise and develop- 
ment of the intellectual faculties. He was not called by 
God, and inspired, to teach us Geology, or natural his- 
tory, or astronomy. These sciences men could learn by 
their own observation, and their own reasoning : but, 
marvellous to say, humanly speaking, there has not been 
a single fact clearly and unquestionably demonstrated by 
Geologists, or naturalists, or astronomers, that contradicts 
one statement recorded in Genesis. 

There have been theories almost without number, mostly 
antagonistic and self-destroying, bold assertions about ig- 
norance of Physical science shown by Moses, on the part 
of men who seem never to have studied profoundly 
any science. There have been thousands, who affecting 
to be savants, have sneered at the expressions of the great 
Jewish prophet, that seemed to conflict with theories of 
light, and the growth of plants, and electrical conditions 
of the atmosphere. 

When these affectations of learning have been carefully 
divested of the pretentious garb of scientific knowledge, 
and submitted to the patient analysis of real Philosophers, 
and Experts in every branch of science, they have invari- 
ably been found to be stupid mistakes, many of which 
stood corrected, even by the accurate knowledge of the 
meaning of words. 

When the grand conception of the writer of Genesis 
comes distinctly before our minds, one can feel only pity 
for such vain puerilities. It is, as though a smart ac- 
countant, acquainted only with figures and balance-sheets, 
were attempting to ledgerize the conceptions of a pro- 
found Philosopher. 

As we trace the further history of the Jewish people, 
as one living at the time when Moses lived, himself the 



330 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 

leader and the guide of this people emerging out of tribe- 
ship into a nation, could alone write it ; as we trace it fur- 
ther still, as he beheld it, by the light of the clear knowledge 
of the future, vouchsafed to him by God, we understand 
that the great work before this wonderful man, was to 
write the history of Religion, and of God's Providence in 
relation to the whole human race. 

He divides his subject into three great epochs, the state 
of isolated families governed only by the law of nature, and 
the primeval revelation ; then the state of these families 
united together as a people, and governed by a written 
law, and the traditions of their forefathers ; and, in fine, 
the future of a mighty nation gathered from every quar- 
ter of the globe, and bound together by the closest bonds 
of religious unity, and in the full light of the first reve- 
lation, developed and perfected by the teaching of the 
Son of God, — the great Prophet not only of the Jewish 
people, but of its brethren throughout the world. 

As the plan so vast, and so sublime, rises before our 
mental view, we feel that it is a conception too grand for 
the finite mind of man, and comprehend, that God alone 
could conceive and effect it. Filled with these thoughts 
of the mission and work of the Jewish lawgiver, we no 
longer wonder, that the face of Moses, to whom this splen- 
did vision was vouchsafed, shone even with a ray of the 
Divine light and majesty ; and learn to appreciate more 
highly the genius of Michael Angelo, who, in his far- 
famed statue of the Mose, has stamped on the marble, an 
air of grandeur that awes the beholder. 

Viewed in this way, the history of the Jewish people 
in their deliverance out of bondage, and in their wander- 
ings through the wilderness ; considering them as under 
the special guidance and government of God for great 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 331 



ends, tlie connecting bond between the first Revelation, 
and the last, must, from the very nature of the case, be 
filled with supernatural manifestations. 

The learned Bishop " of facts and figures," who was 
driven into the wild theories of German unbelief, by the 
simple reasoning of an untutored savage, could never 
have realized to himself the exalted mission and trust, 
confided to the Jewish people, when God Himself guided 
their steps, through his faithful servant. If he had, his 
splendid abilities would have spurned with contempt, 
these petty wranglings about certain facts, that can be 
explained by so ordinary laws of nature. The deliver- 
ance out of Egypt, which was to symbolize the greater 
deliverance of mankind through Jesus Christ, was effected 
therefore as one would expect, with " signs and wonders" 
that would forever stamp it on the memories of the race. 

These mighty portents, which indicated the special 
presence of the most High in their midst, manifested 
constantly to a whole people, celebrated in their national 
songs and festivals, as long as they remained a united 
nation, and even to the present day, treasured in the grate- 
ful remembrance of their descendants, scattered over the 
whole earth, reveal distinctly the supernatural workings 
of Divine Providence, in the deliverance, preservation, 
and even punishments of the Hebrews. Admit one 
great miracle, such as the last plague, which terrified the 
hardened heart of Pharao, or the passage through the 
waters, that swallowed up the Egyptian king and his 
army ; and then the mysterious cloud by day, and the 
pillar of fire by night, and the appalling announcement 
of the Law on Mount Sinai, and the other marvellous 
things recorded in Exodus, are only the outcome we 
might expect from such extraordinary beginnings. 



332 catholic Christianity and the alleged 



If an ignorant savage could not understand how so 
many people and their cattle could be fed in the wilder- 
ness, because he knew, that the grass round his kraal, 
would soon be trampled down by his oxen, it was only 
natural for him to regard the story as something beyond 
belief. 

But a Christian Bishop, who was taught, I suppose, by 
a pious mother, to trust in God, who feeds the birds of 
the air, and clothes the wild flowers of the field in all 
their beauty, and learned, in his early Scripture lessons, 
that the same God was pleased to rain down bread from 
Heaven, for his people, whom lie was training for a 
special service in the wilderness, might have told his in- 
teresting neophyte, better things than are to be found in 
the childish absurdities, of the now almost forgotten 
commentary, of Dr. Paulus. 

This is the fourth great principle, which believers in 
Revelation should remember, when they are disturbed 
by the sneers of unbelief. The history of the Hebrew 
people, while they were governed immediately and di- 
rectly by God, is the history of God's Providence, fitting 
them, notwithstanding their perversity, for the fulfilment 
of a most important part, in the Divine plan for the sal- 
vation of all mankind. 

They were indeed frail " earthen vessels," in which the 
blessed light was to be carried in the midst of Pagan 
darkness, that it might, one day, shine forth on a world 
of iniquity with the life-giving i% knowledge of the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. iv. 6, 7). 
From what Moses tells us, we know that they were prone 
to all the horrible vices of the Pagan nations around 
them. They were not probably worse than these peoples, 
of whose early history we know so little. They rebelled 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 333 



again and again, even when their sensual appetites were 
enjoying the riches of God's bounty. They fell into the 
lowest form of idolatry, while their hearts were still 
quivering within them, at the terrors of His manifesta- 
tion on the mountain. 

They might of course rebel, and plunge, as often as 
they pleased, into shameful excesses, for they, like other 
men, had free-will. But, for the sake of others, for the 
sake of the whole human race, they should be kept mind- 
ful of the treasure they were destined to carry, for the 
benefit of the children of God, in every age, to the con- 
summation of the world. 

When gratitude for miraculous favors, rendered more 
striking in the desolation of the wilderness, could not 
restrain them from crimes, which threatened the Divine 
gift with annihilation, they were subjected to severe but 
salutary punishment. Thousands were suddenly cut off, 
that the rest might be terrified into obedience. The law 
was no doubt rigorous, wherever there was danger of 
devil-worship, and the abominations that accompanied it, 
for had the whole people sunk into this abyss, no evidence 
would have been left to future generations, who, in the 
merciful designs of God, were to enjoy the blessings of 
Eedemption, of the infinite value of this gift. Those 
who witness, with what facility whole nations slide into 
unbelief, notwithstanding the irrefragable testimony of 
Prophecy, preserved by the Hebrew people, in favor of 
the Divine origin of Christianity, can easily imagine, how 
wide would be this desolation, if the " "Wandering Jew," 
as Lacordaire so fittingly calls the scattered race, did not 
continually stand forth, as a witness to the truth, which 
they detest. Therefore, the Divine arm uplifted, in seem- 
ing wrath, fell heavily at times on " the chosen people." 



334 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE ALLEGED 



These exhibitions of the Divine anger, as we so wrongly 
call them, are a favorite theme with the enemies of 
Revelation. The Almighty is even called " a fiend, 55 be- 
cause of the apparent severity attributed to Him, in the 
Old Testament. 

Those who reason so, particularly in Free America, 
should remember what rivers of blood were opened in 
that country, before Slavery could be abolished, and the 
blessed gift of liberty secured for themselves and their 
children. 

And if the fatal blight of Mormonism should unhap- 
pily break through the barriers, which a people, enthusi- 
astically devoted to free institutions, have been forced, in 
self -defence, to form round the Territory of Utah, and 
spreads and pollutes the land with its foul impurities, 
would there be no stern determined action taken to check 
its progress ? The innocent would suffer with the guilty. 

It is always so ; even when, as far as human eye can 
see, God directly punishes those who dishonor Him. 
The wretched blasphemer, who is suddenly struck down 
in the moment of his defiance of his Maker, may have 
a fond wife who deplores his impiety, and little chil- 
dren, and others dependent on his industry and bounty. 
In the convulsions of nature, when thousands are swept 
away in an instant, the young, and the weak and help- 
less, and the innocent, perish with the guilty. Famine, 
War, and Pestilence make no distinction between their 
victims. 

It was so, no doubt, when the wicked among the He- 
brews, threatened, by their perversity, the happiness of 
a future world with destruction. Had the gift of Faith 
perished amongst them, and the preparation which a 
merciful and far-seeing God was making through them, 



ERRORS OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 335 



for the benefit of tlie true freedom of a whole world, 
been frustrated, liow many millions should, by the most 
grievous fault of this people, have sunk down hopelessly 
into the dark shadow of everlasting death ! 

When this view of the subject is calmly entertained, 
can any man with real grasp of mind, seriously consider 
as of any weight the petty objections against the truth 
of the Old Testament, often founded on no other basis 
than the misspelling of a name, or the substitution of a 
false date for the correct one, caused most probably 
through the carelessness of a transcriber ? This hyper- 
criticism, and this pettifogging play on mere words, not 
well understood in the original language, or doubtful 
figures, and numbers in the old manuscripts, is absolutely 
contemptible, and would be best met, not by the labori- 
ous erudition of a scholar, but with the pungent satire 
of which Sheridan is so profuse, in the admirable play of 
the " Critic." 

Let these principles be remembered; and one can 
afford to rank amongst the curiosities of extravagant lit- 
erature, most of the objections urged against the Pen- 
tateuch. I summarize them for the more easy remem- 
brance of my readers. 

1st. No objection or difficulty against Sacred Scripture 
is worth heeding, unless fairly and clearly demonstrated. 

2d. In all anxieties of soul, excited by the arguments 
of unbelief, we are to look to the " everlasting Church/ 5 
and patiently await her answer. 

3d. When we are annoyed by petty, and irritating, 
and stinging sneers, and ridicule against our Faith, 
founded on certain things recorded in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, especially in the Old Testament, we should rise 
to higher and broader conceptions of the ways of Divine 



336 THE ALLEGED ERRORS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



Providence, than are visible to these troublesome admirers 
of stupid profanity. 

4th. We should always keep before our minds as a 
fixed maxim — that the manifest ways of God are not 
to be measured and determined by the ways of men ; 
for " His judgments are incomprehensible and His ways 
are unsearchable" (Rom. xii. 33). 

These principles may save unstable Christians from 
much trouble and anxiety ; keep them clear of dangerous 
society, and still more dangerous reading, and confirm in 
them, God's most precious gift in this world, an earnest 
and lively Faith in everything that He has revealed. 

In the next chapter, I mean to examine some of these 
popular questions, which it is the fashion of cultured 
" Progress," to set up in opposition to Catholic Christi- 
anity. 



SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 



337 



CHAPTEE XVII. 
Catholic Christianity and some Popular "isms." 

WHEN I first set before me the plan of this book, it 
was my intention to have given brief sketches of 
the various " isms," that amuse the restless spirit of this 
age, so fond of trifling with the eternal interests of man- 
kind. It seemed to me then, that it would be well fully 
to analyze them, and point out, in plain and untechnical 
language, their glaring defects. 

But as I thought the subject out, I felt that this, as 
far as practical results were concerned, would be a use- 
less task ; and that it would be much more profitable to 
direct the attention of my readers to certain points, in 
these fantasies of unbelief, that seem most attractive, — 
points such as can easily be seized by ordinary minds, 
and which can be briefly demonstrated to be absolutely 
untenable. 

What practical purpose, for instance, could be gained 
by tracing Pantheism up to Spinoza, and pointing out the 
metaphysical subtleties, by which this hard-headed Jew, 
evolved his system from the Cartesian philosophy ? 

Descartes had, for a while, charmed the thinking world, 
with a philosophy, that appeared, in its simplicity, to 
constitute the natural basis of all certitude. " I think, 
therefore I exist," and " substance is that which has no 
need of anything else to exist" — are propositions which, 
a,t first sight, appear to be almost self-evident. 

But any one accustomed to think, in the real sense of 



338 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



thinking, that is to say, not using the thoughts of others, 
and merely giving them utterance, but drawing up, 
calmly and with fixed attention, ideas from the deep well 
of his individual consciousness, will soon perceive how 
ambiguous, and consequently how flimsy, are these foun- 
dations of certain truth. 

It might be interesting to a few, to trace the connec- 
tion, which Spinoza fancied he saw between individual 
thought, and the great impersonal thinking principle, 
which appeared to him to pervade all nature. 

This is what is meant by Pantheism in its simplest 
form; for the object of this philosophy is mainly to 
establish the principle, that, in tin 1 beginning of all things, 
there existed one original substance, which, gradually 
developing itself, by its own inherent life and energy, in 
course of time, absorbed everything into itself. 

It would be very easy to till whole chapters with the 
speculations of those clever men, who, fascinated by the 
charm of sharing in a new creation, springing spontane- 
ously from the human mind, go on progressively from 
the individual self-consciousness of Descartes, to the fully 
developed Pantheism of to-day. I might show, for 
example, the point reached by Kant, and the pure ideal- 
ism of Pichte, and the perfect abstraction of Hegel, till 
Cousin perfected the theory. The path was tempting ; 
but I could not help saying to myself, cui lono? It will 
be quite enough, for ordinary readers, to know the out- 
come of all this ingenious thinking, as a species of 
Religion, which, in its present state of elaborate finish, 
constitutes the belief of many men of culture. 

It amounts to this, that there is but one substance in 
the world, a great oneness, from which all things emanate, 
and to which all things return : and, as it is impossible 



AISTD SOME POPULAR " ISMS.*' 339 



to conceive a simple oneness without multiplying it, this 
one substance goes on multiplying itself, and exhibiting 
itself in countless forms of diversity, while unchanged 
and unchangeable in its essence, it is always in a state of 
progress. If this one substance, this vital essence, or this 
Force, which Herbert Spencer, in the Nineteenth Gen- 
tury, for March, 1884, calls — " the Infinite and Eternal 
Energy," were admitted by the Philosophers of this 
school, to be the Personal God, distinct from created 
things, and the Sovereign Lord and Master of all that 
He has made, then it would be easy to reconcile Panthe- 
ism with Catholic Christianity. 

Admitting the existence of a God, infinite in all His 
attributes, self-existing, existing of necessity from all 
eternity, "by whom all things were made," Evolution 
would then constitute a charming system of unfolding the 
vast work of creation. 

But alas ! the " Infinite and Eternal Energy" is, in the 
minds of Pantheists, only a blind unconscious Force : it 
cannot know the beings that emanate from its restless 
energy, and is utterly incapable of caring for them, or 
loving them. How a thing like this, can be supposed to 
hold the place of the Christian God, the Supreme Om- 
niscient Being, can scarcely be imagined, as a possible 
conception, by beings gifted with reason. 

Still less can it be accounted for, that a senseless force 
should seem to any one, an improvement on the God of 
Revelation, " Our Father, who loves, and sustains even 
the least things He has made, and knows their wants, and 
without an effort, only by the very nature of His being, 
provides for each, according to its necessities ; who loves 
His rational creatures with a love too great to be con- 
ceived by our finite minds, and sweetly leads them, when 



340 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



they trust to His guidance, to the enjoyment of His own 
beatitude." 

But there are men, highly gifted men and women, who 
have brought themselves seriously to entertain this ex- 
travagant theory. Perhaps it is the very fact of possess- 
ing rare intellectual gifts, that has led them into these 
errors. We can hardly believe another temptation capa- 
ble of seducing those, who in their refined tastes, spurn 
the low attractions of animal pleasures, than the fatal 
one, which dragged Lucifer and the rebel angels, from 
the height of Heaven, and led our first parents and their 
offspring into misery — Pride, the wilful entertainment 
of the thought — "you shall be as Gods." 

If the majority of those, who are thus led away from 
the true source of their being, would only admit, into 
their darkened souls, one ray of that heavenly light, which 
" enlighteneth every man" of good-will " that cometh into 
this world," what splendid Catholics they w r ould be! 
They vehemently desire to rise above their fellows, with 
a sort of passionate enthusiasm, that is constantly aiming 
at generous self-sacrifices. They are filled with noble 
aspirations ; but then they believe only in their own 
brave hearts ; they will not stoop to ask even Divine 
help ; they trust only in themselves, and in a sort of 
imaginary self-perfectibility, that seems to satisfy their 
ardor ; and so they are led away, from the very centre of 
their being, in whose bosom alone there is rest for the 
weary spirit. 

There would have been no counsel of perfection too 
high for the generous appreciation of such as these, if 
they only dwelt, for a moment, on the claims of the Sa- 
vior, to the love of their whole hearts and all their mind. 
Theirs would necessarily be an earnest Faith. More de- 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 



341 



voted in their singleness of purpose than "the young 
man whom Jesus loved," they would gladly have left 
" all things " to follow Him. Had they only one spark 
of that humble docility, which makes us "fit for the 
kingdom of Heaven," how that spark would have glowed 
with the fire which our Divine Lord came to kindle on 
earth ! It would soon consume in them every atom of 
earthly dross, and change them into angels of charity. 

How different would be their happy lot even in this 
world from what it is ! For, now, blinded by the wild 
fancies of Pantheism, they are no better than beings 
without hope, uselessly wasting away their splendid gifts 
on airy nothings, and ever dashing themselves impetu- 
ously against these gloomy barriers of Infidelity, in 
which they have so foolishly imprisoned their noble 
aspirations. 

One cannot read the fervid eloquence of such as these, 
as it is poured forth in their writings, without feeling 
like the slave Syra, in Fabiola, that it would be an act 
most pleasing to God, to purchase their liberty, and a 
place for them in His loving bosom, by the sacrifice even 
of one's own life. 

"What is this Pantheistic religion to them but the mock- 
ing spirit, which, whispering in their ears " Excelsior," is 
ever luring them to fatal destruction. There are many 
of these really great souls, who, like the rash penitent of 
the illustrious Fenelon, aim at greater heights than even 
Christian perfection, and who deem it selfish to care even 
for one's own eternal welfare, when they can promote 
the happiness of others. 

If we once bring ourselves to believe, that the eloquent 
words which have thrilled the hearts of so many who pity 
them, are the genuine expression of real sentiments, what 



342 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



I say of the highly cultured of this class of unbelievers, 
will not appear in the least overstrained or exaggerated. 
Take for example these verses of George Eliot — quoted 
by Mallock. 

" Oh may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In lives made happy by their presence. So 
To live is heaven 

1 1 May I reach 

That purest heaven, and be to other souls 
That cup of strength in some great agony, 
Enkindle generous ardor, feel pure love, 
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty. 
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 
And in diffusion ever more intense; 
So shall I join that choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world." 

" Here," as Mallock says, " is hope, ardor, sympathy, 
and resolution, enough and to spare." But what is this 
hope? What is the aim and object of all this ardor? 
Alas ! there is no definite object ; all is vague, transitory, 
unreal, as is that love of the neighbor, which is not 
founded on the love of the Personal God. 

To such as these however, dazzled as they are by the 
glory of a humanity perfectible in itself, — " a substance," 
which in the words of Spinoza, " has no need of anything 
to exist" (not even of God), the words of Uncreated Wis- 
dom — " Unless you become as little children you shall 
not enter into the kingdom of Heaven" (Matt, xviii. 3) — 
are simple fully. To be converted from Gods to what is 
weakest, physically and mentally, in the world, would 
seem to them utter degradation. But our Divine Lord, 
in this passage, so dear to every earnest Christian, is not 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 



343 



speaking of the deprivation of personal gifts, which the 
Lady Fabiola imagined might be taken from her, when 
she became a child of God in Baptism. He is pointing 
out, in the little child, only that absolute ignorance of 
worldly greatness, which is the chief characteristic of 
happy childhood ; and that unfeigned humility, which is 
the real charm, even in the eyes of men, of every human 
perfection. 

As a rule, Pantheists of this cultured class do not de- 
spise or abuse Catholic Christianity. They admit that it 
is very good, as far as it goes. They only complain that 
it does not go far enough to satisfy their aspirations ; and 
that its claims are opposed to the rights of ennobled Hu- 
manity. It is worth remarking that Cousin, the master- 
mind, who is regarded as the man who gave the last pol- 
ish to this fashionable creed, flung it from him, towards 
the close of his life, with loathing and disgust ; and en- 
deavored to repair the scandal he had given, in his Pan- 
theistic writings, by attending regularly at daily Mass, 
and frequently approaching the sacraments. 

I pass on to another kind of popular unbelief, much 
more common than Pantheism. This is what is called 
Materialism, or Positivism. 

Although it might be considered the antithesis of 
Pantheism, it is, like all the other " isms" of the day, 
the worship, under another form, of Humanity. The 
distinctive feature of Materialism is, that it ignores any- 
thing like a dual nature in man. While Pantheists exalt 
the aspirations of mind and thought, to heights beyond 
the reach of unaided human nature, and scarcely give 
themselves time to analyze the source whence these ex- 
alted sentiments spring, the modern Materialists, like the 
"hogs" of the school of Epicurus, love to wallow in 



344 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



sensuality. They, unlike the Pagans of this sect, who 
believed in a sort of immortality, for even the voluptuous 
Horace says, " non omnis moriar" " my whole being 
shall not perish," maintain, that all that concerns the in- 
dividual man ends with death. 

They will not even believe that death is a sleep, an 
eternal sleep ; for by admitting this, they might be led, 
like Hamlet in the play, to question the possibility of a 
troubled dream. They are determined not " to puzzle 
the will" "with the dread of something after death." 
This is what I have called, a few times, " the bag of 
bones theory f or that belief which tells its votaries, that 
when they die, and the body returns to dust, there is a 
complete end of the human being; not simply the loss 
of individuality, by a real sorption of the living principle 
into the one universal substance, but annihilation pure 
and simple. 

It is difficult to believe, that there can be earnest 
materialists. It is almost as difficult for a serious thinker 
to realize this to himself, as the existence of a real 
Atheist. One can understand, that a low, ignorant 
sensualist, a drunken sottish Kaffir, or Hottentot, might 
quietly rest in this mud of unbelief ; but not a man cap- 
able of thinking and reasoning. 

I remember, once, on a journey, pointing out to the 
native driver, a dead ox, that lay by the roadside, and I 
said to this man, who, I knew was always on the look-out 
for what he called " a chance," — that is an opportunity of 
indulging heavily in Cape brandy, " When you die, will 
it be all over with you, like that dead beast?" He re- 
plied, " Yah, Baas, I think so." And when I spoke to 
him of the soul, and the spirit, and seat of life within 
him, he merely laughed, and said that he believed white 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS.'* 345 

people spoke of such things ; but, for his part, he had 
never seen anything of the kind. 

Stupid as was the reply, it seems to me far more ex- 
cusable, than the assertion of an educated man, the child 
perhaps of Christian parents, or it may be once himself 
a Christian, who would say, " When I die there will be, 
as surely an end of me, as of the flower that dies in the 
garden." 

According to the Materialist, who to quiet the re- 
proaches of conscience, and to pursue the gratification of 
his passions, has coached himself up, so far in Infidel 
reading, as to make himself, " a poor imitation of polish- 
ed ungodliness," there is no such thing as spirit or soul, 
distinct from the body. He will say, spouting most 
probably the words of some fashionable Infidel writer, 
u The grand discovery of modern times is ' Osmosis.' 
You know," he will continue, in a dogmatic strain, as if 
he were about shedding a ray of light on the darkness of 
your understanding, and dispelling the shadows of un- 
pleasant and disturbing thoughts, — " Osmosis means that 
man is only an aggregate of cells : the will and all that, is 
but the succession of cellular vibrations ; and the action of 
the mind, as it is called, is only the combination of brain 
waves, as they pass over the delicate nerves, and brain 
tissue. Of course, you know that ' we are fearfully and 
wonderfully made,' and in fact, we have not yet reached, 
in our most delicate instruments, anything like that 
splendidly assorted combination, which natural develop- 
ment has effected in the organs of sense ; but we are so 
rapidly coming to that point, that by and by, illustra- 
tions taken from the most perfect telephone, or even 
musical instrument, will bring the matter clearly before 
you. But something in the same way as the sound of 



346 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



the voice, or the most delicate touch will cause these 
exquisitely fine vibrations, in the same way, sensations 
excite vibrations on the highly sensitive nerve centres, 
and thus we come to feel, and think, and reason. 

" Of course," he will continue, " You never imagined 
that animals had what they call souls : yet you see they 
have reason. What is called instinct is in reality exactly 
the same in kind as reason. And then perhaps, he 
launches out into proofs and illustrations, commencing 
with — ' I had a dog once ;' or { 1 knew a man who had 
a pet monkey ' or a k pet canary,' and these creatures 
did so and so, — fully and perfectly reasoned just as a 
human being, not so perfectly of course, because they 
had not acquired the same perfect organization." 

This is generally speaking, the style of philosophizing 
of the young Materialists, that one meets so frequently 
nowadays. A little real Philosophy will sweep away at 
once all this mystified jargon, even though supported by 
the authority of great names. 

There is no use in entering deeply into the question 
with those, who seem to consider, that they have summed 
up all that can be said against the existence of spirit, when 
they argue — whoever saw, or heard, or smelt a spirit, or 
could tell us anything about its shape, and color, or what 
it is like ? 

"When they affect to be satisfied with this peculiar sort 
of metaphysical reasoning, we can only say that, consid- 
ering their opportunities, they are much lower in the 
scale of intellectual activity, than the native to whom I 
have just alluded. The poor fellow argued straight- 
forwardly on the only data he ever had for forming a 
conclusion. He knew all about a splint, or a spavined 
horse, when he saw certain indications, or could even feel, 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 347 



in his sensitive bridle-hand, though he saw nothing amiss, 
that there was something wrong with the reins or har- 
ness, but spiritual essence was beyond his comprehension. 

Hence, there is not much use in establishing the exist- 
ence of spirit and soul as distinct from body. It will 
suffice to give the rudimentary principles of sound phi- 
losophy. We say the soul is distinct from the body, not 
because we rest on the testimony of sense, which can 
certify nothing on a subject altogether beyond its pow- 
ers ; but on the evidence of reason only, where there is 
no appeal to Revelation. 

The mind has the power of forming abstract ideas, and 
the power of generalizing : and this is absolutely beyond 
the reach of matter, however attenuated, and brought 
towards the confines of spirit. The instinct of a brute 
animal, whatever instinct may be, can receive a certain 
impression, and retain it even for a long time, and thus 
remember it, just as a scene described to us, can be, as it 
were painted on the memory. The scene had a real 
existence, and therefore it can, in some way, be received 
by a material substance, as a picture can be stamped on 
the sensitive collodion surface of a plate in the camera. 

But an abstraction, the putting of mere thoughts 
together, and the conclusion deduced from them, can- 
not be so impressed on any material substance ; be- 
cause there is no existing substance that can be copied. 
Thought is something, that no camera, however delicately 
constructed, can conceivably seize, and transfer, by any 
medium, to the sensitive plate. If men gifted with ex- 
traordinary powers of observation, like those who profess 
to distinguish the vowel and consonant sounds in the 
mewing of a cat, succeed in demonstrating marvellous 
powers of observation in domestic animals, this only 



348 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



would prove that there is a faculty in these creatures, far 
beyond anything conceived by Materialists ; hut the 
power of generalizing, and combining abstract thoughts, 
is completely beyond the capabilities of mere matter. 

To effect this, matter should be a thing divested of 
parts, and superior, in its form, to thought itself. Who 
will attempt to divide a simple thought, as the Copula 
that unites premises and conclusion, into parts, so as, by 
any stretch of imagination, to divide into halves and quar- 
ters, that which is simplicity itself I Matter is essentially 
sluggish, and divisible, and cannot therefore adapt itself 
to receive and combine, what is, in its very nature, more 
rapid than the lightning, which appears and is gone, be- 
fore the most perfect articulation can bear testimony to 
its existence. 

Evidently the substance, which can, more quickly than 
any conceivable motion, arrange the evanescent thoughts, 
must be a Bubstance perfectly simple in itself, and there- 
fore cannot be anything material. 

Contradictions cannot coexist in matter ; a bar of iron 
cannot be red hot and icy cold at the same instant. Yet 
there is no more common operation, in the mind of even 
the most uneducated of the human race, than the coexist- 
ence of thoughts which are perfectly antagonistic. 

Take the case of a perplexed juryman who has simply 
to say yes or no to a certain proposition, on which life 
or lives depend. The antagonistic elements are there, 
face to face, equal, for the time at least, in their opposing 
power. In any material substance, such forces should, by 
one of the first laws of nature, destroy each other : yet 
they subsist together in the mind of the juror; and may 
subsist even, when, under the pressure of peculiar circum- 
stances, he has delivered his ill-considered verdict. 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 349 

Take another familiar illustration ; the good Templar, 
or strict Teetotaller, is sorely pressed by thirst ; there is 
nothing to satisfy this almost irresistible longing of nature, 
but a glass of alcoholic spirit. Yet the mind bravely re- 
sists the pressure, because it feels a paramount sense of 
duty. 

Can any Materialist ever imagine, that a day will come, 
when matter, in any shape or form, will evidence this 
mental struggle, in the shape of a picture cognizable by 
sense ? 

Of course, in a book like this, it would be altogether 
out of place to pile up metaphysical arguments. He who 
runs may read, if he have ordinary capacity > in what i 
have said, that Materialism as a Religion or a comfort 
to distressed consciences, is a thing not to be dreamt of 
by beings gifted with intelligence. 

If we rise above the nature of man, and his religious 
wants, in connection with materialistic theories, and con- 
sider its speculations about the first cause, in the chance 
formation of atoms in the protoplasm, the eternal com- 
bining, and breaking up of cells, under the influence of 
an unconscious and unintelligent energy, and all the non- 
sense that has been formulated under the name of 
Philosophy, to account for the origin of things, the answer 
it seems to me, is best found in the well-known lines of 
the Poet. 

" How should matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law, 
80 vast iu its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force 
And under pressure of some conscious cause? 
The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused, 
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
Nature is but a name for an effect, 



350 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret lire 
By which the mighty process is maintained. 
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight 
Slow circling ages are as transient days; 
Whose work is without labor; whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; 
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts." 

Cowper, " The Task." 

The late Lord Beaconsfield well Bummed up, in a few 
lines, all that common-sense cares to say about the wild 
dreams of Atheism, and its masked sisters, Pantheism 
and Materialism, and the other "isms" that affect to 
ignore the existence of a Personal G-od — "Nothing can 
surely be more monstrous, than to represent a Creator as 
unconscious of creating*" 

A few words on Agnosticism will fittingly conclude 
this chapter. I have already, in previous chapters, 
described it as the great fall-back and bulwark of unbe- 
lief. A\ hen sorely pressed, unbelievers of our times 
entrench themselves in this imaginary stronghold. 

What does it mean \ Simply nothing. It is the abso- 
lute " No" of the Seer of Chelsea, the " know-nothing- 
ism w of rampant infidelity. You press the Agnostics for 
an answer to some cogent argument, and the reply is — 
"I know nothing about it." And, lest this confession 
would be too humiliating, they say, " Nor can you know 
anything on the subject." It is " the unknown and the 
unknowable." What an absurdity ! What a manifest 
contradiction in terms ! If it be altogether the unknown, 
how can it be logically predicated of it, that it is the 
unk owable \ 

As to the claim of Agnosticism to be anything like a 
Religion, its creed formulated, as Frederic Harrison says, 
by the acknowledged head of the Evolution philosophy, 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 



351 



" with a deliniteness such as it never wore before," the 
claim has received a death-blow from this clever writer. 
Harrison has indeed proved beyond doubt, that it is the 
" Ghost of Religion," " defecated to a pure transparency." 

When St. Paul, standing in the Areopagus, would, in 
a trenchant phrase, dispose of the claims of its great men 
to anything like Philosophy ; and show that they were 
" too superstitious" to be reasoned with, he pointed to the 
altar, which they had erected " to the unknown God." 
What would the great Apostle have said, had he found 
that they had added to the word unknown, the self-con- 
tradiction of " unknowable." 

Men must be blinded to their own foolishness, when 
they commit themselves dogmatically to the stupid asser- 
tion, that the thing of which they know nothing whatso- 
ever is so complex in its nature, and so far beyond ordi- 
nary things, that no one can possibly know anything 
about it. 

A few passages from Harrison, will show that Agnos- 
ticism were better dead and buried forever, than that 
any one should attempt to utter such nonsense in connec- 
tion with it. 

" If," says Harrison, " Religion is still to be, it cannot 
be found in this No-man's land, and Know-nothing creed. 
Better bury Religion at once, than let its Ghost walk 
uneasy in our dreams" — "Agnosticism is no more a Re- 
ligion than Differentiation, or the Nebular hypothesis is 
religion." 

And again — " To make a Religion out of the unknow- 
able, is far more extravagant, than to make it out of the 
Equator; it influences seamen, equatorial people, and 
Geographers not a little, and we all hesitate, as was once 
said, to speak disrespectfully of the Equator. But would 



352 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



it be blasphemy to speak disrespectfully of the Unknow- 
able? Our minds are a blank about it. As to acknowl- 
edging the unknowable, or trusting in it, or feeling its 
influence over us, or paying gratitude to it, or conform- 
ing our lives to it, or looking to it for help, — the use of 
such words about it is unmeaning." 

And, as if this were not enough to excite contempt for 
the wretched abomination, which lias captivated the re- 
ligions tastes of so many cultured admirers of the fashion- 
able Q-od <>f the hour, he caps the climax of its absurdity, 
by introducing it to US, a- the Formula (af*) x in the 
power, or the Unknown raised to infinity; and represents 
its worshippers, as appealing to this strange God in the 
language of emotional piety. "O ! # n , love us, help us, 
make us one with thee !" 

But there is something more than ridicule, there is 
enough to awaken, not mere contempt for this absurd 
idol, but the indignation of all, who have ever felt what 
Religion means, when he draws a vivid picture of those 
who feel the need of Religion, appealing to its great mas- 
ter, for help in their bitter woe — " A mother wrung with 
agony for the loss of her child, or the wife crushed by 
the death of her children's father, or the helpless, and the 
oppressed, the poor and the needy, men, women, and 
children, in sorrow, doubt, and want, longing for some- 
thing to comfort and to guide them, something to believe 
in, to hope for, to love, and to worship. . . . They come to 
our Philosopher, and they say — 'Your men of science 
have routed our priests, and have silenced our old teach- 
ers, what religious faith do you give us in its place ? ' 
And the Philosopher replies (his full heart bleeding for 
them) and he says — ' Think on the Unknowable.' " 

If this does not give a quietus to Agnosticism, I know 



AND SOME POPULAR " ISMS." 353 

not what will. If it still survives, even as the transpar- 
ency of nothingness, its light shade can only be found 
flitting round the studio of some distracted Philosopher, 
insensible alike to laughter and to tears, and wholly bent 
on constructing a system which may yet, through the 
frivolity of the age, turn some demented beings from the 
attractions of Catholic Christianity. 

If this creed of the " don't knows" is the only fail-back 
for those who, without serious thought or study, take up 
every religious paragraph, that may meet their eyes in 
newspapers, or magazines, or pamphlets, and hurl it 
spitefully at the " everlasting Church," they ought, in 
common-sense, to give up their unholy and contemptible 
warfare, before the feeble barrier, behind which they so 
ignominiously hide their heads, at the least show of re- 
sistance, is blown from the face of the earth, by the ex- 
pression of public scorn and universal derision. 

In the next chapter, I purpose to deal with another 
foe to Catholicity, deserving of more serious notice than 
those I have combated here. It is that Realism which is 
found in the worship of Humanity, and which is so 
strongly advocated in the paper from which I have taken 
the above extracts. 



354 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



HE article of Mr. Harrison, in the Xhi< tr, nth Cen- 



/"/'/A for March, 1884, from which I have taken 
so many extracts, given in the last chapter, ends with 
these significant words — k * Shall we cling to a Religion of 
spiritism, when Philosophy is whittling away spirit to 
nothing? Or shall we accept a Religion of Realism, 
where all the great traditions and functions of Religion 
are retained unbroken P* 

If by spiritism is here meant ghost stories, and devil 
worship, and the various superstitions which have, in 
every age, engaged the attention of men, when they 
abandoned the true light to grope in darkness, not Phi- 
losophy alone, but practical common-sense are indeed di- 
vesting these dreams of the charms which once hung 
around them, and whittling them away to Nothing. 
Some half-crazed individuals will no doubt cling to the 
invocation, and worship of the spirits of darkness : but 
the samor jxxrs of unbelieving mankind, to whom the 
Epicurean maxim — "Ipsa ut/ilitas justi prope mater et 
(Bqui™ and " the almighty dollar" form the substitute for 
a Religion, whose treasure is in Heaven, will have no 
f ellowship with these " tricks" that lead to nothing profit- 
able and substantial. 

If the Providence of God allowed the lying spirits to 
disturb the order of the world, and to reveal to their vo- 
taries, the treasures of gold and silver and diamonds and 



CHAPTER XVIIL 



Catholic Christianity and Realism. 




CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 355 



other precious things, that lie hidden in the earth, then 
the case might be different. If these coveted treasures 
were to be the rewards, not of honest industry, and that 
toil and labor which form the allotted task of fallen 
humanity, but of magical rites, then the case would be 
much altered, and an excuse would readily be found by 
the many, for devoting their attention to the occult 
sciences. But now, that " the game 9 ' is found to be " not 
worth the candle,' 5 all this abomination is heartily con- 
signed to where it came from. 

Still men, however worldly minded, must have a Re- 
ligion of some kind ; one particularly that has an air of 
respectability about it, and at least certain functions, which, 
whether they satisfy the aspirations of the heart or not, 
will at least maintain public order and decorum, or fall in 
with their sympathies when they are disposed " to feel 
good." 

In this way, I read the quotation given above, and this 
meaning, the aptness of which will be more generally 
felt, than openly acknowledged, leads me to speak of that 
Religion, which is, according to the Philosophers of the 
utile and dulce school, the worship of Humanity. 

The article of Herbert Spencer, "the Prophet and 
guide" of the Agnostics, which provoked the reply of 
Harrison, is not without considerable merit in the eyes of 
its critic. " It is," the latter says, "in its final outcome, 
the most cogent and suggestive, that has yet appeared, in 
the whole range of modern religious discussion." And 
why ? Because, no doubt, it brings out, clearly and dis- 
tinctly, the nature and the origin of the worship of Hu- 
manity ; and not only this, but because it interweaves this 
charming Religion of the cultured children of unbelief 
with Evolution, — the popular Philosophy of the day. 



356 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



A short passage of this remarkable article " Religion, a 
Retrospect and Prospect'' {Nineteenth Century, January, 
1884), will explain my meaning. " Thus," writes Her- 
bert Spencer, u recognizing the fact that, in the primitive 
human mind, there exists neither religious idea, nor reli- 
gious sentiment, we find that, in the course of social evo- 
lution, and the evolution of intelligence accompanying it, 
there are generated both the ideas and sentiments which 
we distinguish as religious; and that, through a process 
of causation clearly traceable, they traverse those stages 
which have brought them, among civilized races, to their 
present forms." 

It was always a favorite theory of unbelief (we can 
trace it back to the unbelievers in the national religion 
before Christianity), that man wa- gradually evolved from 
a savage state, and Led, chiefly by feelings of self-preser- 
vation and mutual protection, to society, and civilization, 
and good government, and order. 

The Darwinian theory, as regards the origin of man, is 
only an exaggeration of this old Pagan notion. And, so 
the modern Philosophers of Realism trace back religious 
idea- and religious sentiments, to feelings of admiration 
and re>pect for chiefs and heroes distinguished from the 
crowd by their lofty stature, their physical strength, and 
their commanding abilities. Men of this stamp were 
looked up to with veneration by their fellows ; and after 
death, were honored in the memory of those who sur- 
vived them, as heroes and demi-gods. Their valiant 
exploits were in time exaggerated ; their virtues and 
transcendent talents described as more than human ; and 
thus in time, their images were set up, and made objects 
of adoration. 

It is easy to construct theories and systems ; particu- 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISE. 357 



larly when facts are not considered necessary to con- 
stitute their bases, and they fall in with individual and 
national prejndices 

No one can doubt but that the Darwinian theory of 
Evolution is beautiful in its simplicity; and though it 
somewhat shocks our pride, by connecting our earliest 
origin with rather discreditable-looking ancestors, and 
savage propensities, most men however, who admire the 
creations of original thought, are disposed to forget or 
ignore these very distant beginnings of the race, in their 
admiration of the charms of the bold grasp of mind, 
which conceived so grand a system. 

Unfortunately for the Darwinian theory of "natural 
selection," and "the survival of the fittest," it wants a firm 
basis on which to rest. There is, as I noticed in a former 
chapter, the absence of any memorial in the shape of a 
fossil, or earth-mark indicating the transition state from 
brute animal to man, the want of " the connecting link," 
as it is commonly called ; and this is fatal to the system, 
as a science. 

There are a number of stark facts, very curious and 
interesting no doubt, about animal instinct ; but they are 
all beside the question, when the ingenious author com- 
pletely sets aside, as if he could not see it, the essential 
difference in kind between the highest operations in man 
and the lowest ; between the operations of the animal, 
and the " human acts " of the reasonable being ; and 
seeks the connecting link between brute and man, only 
in the lower and sensitive nature of the latter. 

Common-sense will see, even without a particle of 
science, that there is something considerably greater than 
the difference of degree, between the purely sensitive 
talk of a parrot, and human conversation ; between the 



358 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



animal affection of a dog for his master, and the abstract 
judgment implied in man's worship of God ; between a 
cat fondling with a friendly hound and a man judging 
between right and wrong. 

If Darwin held that the thinking principle in man was 
the same in kind, though far different in degree, from 
the seat of instinct in beasts, and therefore, that what we 
call the 60ul in man was only a highly delicate nervous 
organ, then the unanswerable point I touched upon in 
the last chapter, showing the absolute impossibility of 
contradictory thoughts in the same material substance, 
would apply to the theorj of Evolution. The evolution 
of a man from a brute tx ast would then be as impossible 
to imagine, as that a man could sit and run. be asleep 
and awake, be in a fever and <piite well, at one and the 
same moment. 

There is nothing in Catholic teaching to prevent us 
holding the doctrine of evolution up to a certain point. 
God may have created life germs, at the first instant of 
creation. This would simplify considerably many of the 
difficulties urged by Unbelief against the unity of race, 
and the preservation of animal life from the waters of 
the Deluge, as recorded in Genesis; but it is certainly 
contrary to Faith to hold, that the soul of man could be 
evolved from the seat of instinct in a beast. 

It is much the same with the evolution of Religion, 
as with the theory of animal evolution: it has no basis 
on which to rest. It starts too on a wrong principle ; it 
begins at the wrong end. 

It may be questioned if the theory of Darwin is not 
subject to the same fundamental error. Artificial selec- 
tion, and careful breeding will, every one knows, develop 
a sort of perfection in animals ; and the same care with 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 859 

plants, and flowers, and trees, lead to similar results. 
Tliis is of course the foundation of "natural selection 5 ' 
and " the preservation of the fittest but, I say, it may 
be questioned if animals or plants, left to themselves, 
will, by any process of nature, go on to perfection. Ex- 
perience I believe generally testifies to the contrary; 
that breeds of animals and plants will deteriorate, if not 
carefully attended to. Peculiarities of structure, if not 
constantly watched and selected, will, as in nature, where- 
ever the peculiarity is transmitted, become deformities. 
Even the celebrated ancon sheep, with its long body, and 
short bow-legs, might, if left to breed like the common 
flock, have propagated, for a time, a sort of monstrosity. 
If this be true, the whole theory of Darwin, which sup- 
poses natural progress towards perfection to be an ordi- 
nary law of nature, is a grand mistake, even in its broad- 
est conception. 

But certainly Evolution in Religion is open to this 
charge. The notion of Religion gradually rising from 
hero-worship, and eliminating, in its growth, human im- 
perfections from future Gods and Goddesses, and evolv- 
ing Theism from Polytheism, until its perfection is 
reached in Catholic Christianity, is a gross mistake ; and 
is palpably contradicted by facts in the early history of 
nations. 

The most certain and universal fact, that can be ascer- 
tained from the primitive records of all ancient peoples, 
is this, that there was a revelation made to man in the 
very beginning of his existence ; and that this tradition 
gradually degenerated, and became disfigured, and weak- 
ened, and corrupted, till it had almost perished before the 
advent of our Divine Lord. 

I was very much struck, some years ago, by becoming 



360 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



acquainted with a class of works, eagerly devoured by- 
certain cultured readers, professional men with hazy no- 
tions about Christianity. These works undertook to 
prove, that all Religions were one, when they w T ere care- 
fully examined. The gentleman, since dead, who intro- 
duced me to this class of reading, gave me something of 
his own investigations into the Religion of the Buddhists 
and Parsees, and pointed out to me some notable in- 
stances of similarity, in these Eastern Religions, to Catho- 
lic doctrine and worship. 

The Abbo line has given most interesting information 
bearing on the same subject, discovered during hie visit 
to Lassa, the capital of Thibet. 

Of course this was naturally to be expected after the 
fact of a Revelation made to our iirst parents. The 
truths relating to the unseen world, would have been 
communicated by them to the early patriarchs, and be, in 
this way, transmitted to the founders of the dilTerent na- 
tions and peoples of ancient times; and thus gradually 
brought down, embalmed in the religious rites of many 
peoples actually existing. 

What struck me with surprise was, that this argument, 
so favorable to revealed Religion, should, by some obli- 
quity of judgment, be supposed by men of reading and 
intelligence to make against it. They saw the difficulty 
only in one way. " Here," they say, " is an overpower- 
ing argument against Christianity. You imagined that 
what Christians believe, was first taught by Christ, and 
lo ! here is the self-same doctrine taught by Egyptian 
priests, and Buddhists, long before the birth of Christ." 

The answer is manifest. What more natural than that 
the elements of Christian revealed religion should have 
permeated all nations, long before Christ appeared on 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 361 

earth. The Jewish law, and the books of Moses, which 
contain its substance, were but the written record of the 
first revelation. And Christ came, not to destroy the 
law, but, to fulfil it, and perfect it. Christianity, in its 
essential parts, the Unity and Trinity of God, the neces- 
sity of a Redeemer, the restoration of a fallen race, the 
Resurrection and eternal life, forms a body of doctrine as 
old as the existence of man upon this world. When we 
glance at the traditions of some of the earliest peoples, we 
may well hold up our hands in amazement, that the lead- 
ers of progress should be completely ignorant of this key 
to all their difficulties, and expose themselves to the ridi- 
cule of educated Christians, by fantastic theories about 
hero-worship, and the Evolution of Religion. 

From a learned work by L. de Rouen, Baron D'Alvi- 
more, I will quote a few passages, which show, that, not 
only the knowledge of the Fall, and the promise of a 
Redeemer, were carefully preserved in the traditions of 
early nations; but also the remembrance of the great 
events recorded in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. 

1st. We have the Chinese traditions, testifying to the 
original Revelation. In the book called Chou-King^ 
regarded by the Chinese as the immovable basis of their 
history, we read of the creation of the universe out of 
nothing by an eternal Being, the Creator of the earth ; 
the whole human race derived from one pair ; the deluge, 
in which all perished except one family. It is stated in 
this book, that Mu-wa (Noe) was saved in a boat ; and 
that a colony of his descendants settled in Chen-si, and 
that the chief of this people was the wise Yao. In 
another of the sacred books, we find still more striking 
records. There is mentioned the state of innocence in 
which man was created, the terrestrial paradise, the tree 



362 catholic Christianity and realism. 



of life, the forbidden fruit, the fall of the woman, the 
long life of the Patriarchs, and even the promise of a 
Redeemer. Confucius says expressly, that the holy -one, 
sent from heaven, will know all things, and that he will 
have power in heaven and on earth ; and in many places, 
he speaks of the holy man who is to come. M. Abel 
R&nnsat shows that the coming of a holy one was 
generally believed in China, >ix hundred years before the 
Christian era. 

Sanchoniathon, who, Voltaire says, lived among the 
Phoenicians before the time of Moses, writes — " There 
were in the beginning a dark Chaos and a spirit. The 
spirit reacting on this Chaos, and wanning it, brought 
forth a sort of fermenting substance, which became the 
seed of all creatures, and determined the formation of the 
Universe." He also says, that "the first man and 
woman were brought forth by a vivifying breath and by 
Chaos." In the Vedas of the Hindoos, we read, — "The 
universe existed only in an indefinable manner in the 
Divine thought, so that the understanding could not dis- 
cern it. Then the self-existing power created the visible 
world, with the live elements, and the different principles 
of things. From His thought alone, He created the 
waters. They were first called nara, because they were 
produced by the nam or spirit of God; and as they were 
also the matter on which the first ayana (movement of 
the Creator) acted, they received the name of narayana 
(movement over the waters)." 

One of the Vedas calls the first man Aclima (the first ;) 
it gives him for his companion a woman, whom it names 
Pracriti, a word which among the Hindoos signifies the 
same as Ileva, or life, among the Hebrews. They are 
first in a state of innocence and happiness ; but this happy 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 363 



state lasts but for a short time. The first parents are 
corrupted, and the children become still worse than their 
fathers. God is angry, he covers the heavens with clouds, 
separates the poles with thunder and lightning, raises the 
waves of the sea, till they cover the earth, and buries the 
human race beneath the waters, Brahmah escaping the 
general ruin, repeoples the Universe. 

Amongst the Persians, we find the following traditions 
in their sacred books. Ormuzd (principle of all beings) 
created the world in six times. He made first the 
Heaven, then the water, earth, trees, animals. Man and 
woman were the last works of creation. Placed in a 
garden, both were destined to be happy ; but both al- 
lowed themselves to be seduced by Ahriman, the great 
serpent, the knowing one, the liar, and they became 
unhappy by their disobedience. Death is introduced into 
the world by Ahriman. Ormuzd will send a Saviour, 
the prophet Sraosha, to prepare them for the general 
Resurrection. 

It is not only among Oriental nations, that these tradi- 
tions are found, but among the early inhabitants of the 
new world. We read, in the early history of the Mexi- 
cans, that before the great deluge, the country of Anahuac 
was inhabited by Giants. All those who did not perish 
were converted into fish, with the exception of seven, 
who took refuge in caverns. When the waters had sub- 
sided, one of the giants constructed an artificial hill, in 
the shape of a pyramid. The Gods were angry, and 
launched down fire on the monument, and killed many 
of the workmen. Among five of the peoples, who origi- 
nally inhabited Mexico, were found paintings, in one group 
of which were represented the woman with the serpent 
Qv 'Jaztli (woman of our flesh). The Mexicans regarded 



364 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



AND REALISM. 



her as the mother of the human race. Another group re- 
presented the deluge of Coxcox, the Noe of these people, 
saved from the waters, with his wife in a raft of Ana- 
huete. Another tradition described Tezpi in a large 
vessel, with his wife, children, many animals, and all sorts 
of grain necessary for the preservation of the human race. 
Tezpi, on the retiring of the waters, sends forth a vulture, 
and afterwards other hirds, amongst them the humming 
bird, which returned with a branch covered with leaves; 
and then Tezpi left the vessel near the mountain of Col- 
li uacan. 

The learned author, from whose book BecueU de 
filiations" I have taken these extracts, fittingly observes 
— u Must we not recognize in these traditions, of people 
so separated from each other, clearly the traces of a com- 
mon origin i" 

Even the longevity of the early Patriarchs is attested 
by the history of early India, and Persia, of China, and 
Egypt, and of the new world. Amongst the Indians, 
the records of Mi nou speak of the age of gold, when the 
Saty<i. % young men free from sickness, lived for four 
hundred year-. 

Vulcan reigns one thousand years in Egypt. Caiou- 
mmrath (the first man), first king of Persia, lived one 
thousand years. In China, Ching-Nong reigns one hun- 
dred and forty-five year-. Among the early Americans, 
Behica lives two thousand years. The same longevity is 
attested in the histories of ancient Chaldea, Phoenicia and 
Greece. Chance could not have produced this unifor- 
mity of tradition in countries so far remote from each 
other. The ideas of peoples, who had nothing common 
in their laws, language and religion could not agree so 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



365 



remarkably, if there was not truth at the bottom of these 
earl) 7 traditions. 

I have dwelt on these interesting details, because they 
seem to me completely to upset the theory of Religion by 
Evolution from hero-worship, the only speculation that 
seems at first sight, apart from the account given in 
Genesis, to satisfy diligent inquiry into the origin of Re- 
ligion. If such is the fate of what is called Realism, to 
distinguish it from transparent crudities, it is not too 
much to say, that all this farrago of unbelief will soon 
be consigned, by all thinking men, to " the tomb of all 
the Capulets." 

It is remarkable that every sustained attack on Revela- 
tion, that is to say, every attack that was backed by a 
show of learning, and thus provoked careful inquiry and 
study, has resulted in new triumphs for the truth of Re- 
velation. What the inscriptions on the stone monuments 
of early Egypt and Assyria are doing every year, as they 
are deciphered by learned experts, corroborating the his- 
tory of the sacred books even in minute detail, has been 
the constant result of calm and dispassionate investigation 
of all such objections. 

The modern German school of Bible criticism has, in 
this way, strikingly confirmed the truths recorded in the 
Old and New Testament. The truth of the Resurrection 
of our Divine Lord, for example, which is, according to 
St. Paul, the sum and substance of the proofs of the 
Divine origin of Christianity — " If Christ be not risen 
again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also 
vain" (1 Cor. xv. 14) is, if possible, more clearly demon- 
strated than ever, by the sustained attempt of many Ger- 
man infidels to prove that Christ was not dead, when laid 
in the sepulchre. 



366 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 



They said He was only in a trance from loss of blood, 
and that, when laid in the cool vault, and refreshed by 
the smell of the aromatic spices, placed about His head, 
He recovered and quietly walked away. Christian writ- 
ers easily proved the absurdity of this hypothesis. 

They showed that the great quantity of myrrh and 
aloes, "about a hundred pounds" (John xix. 39) wrapped 
round the head of our Divine Lord, would effectually 
have smothered FTim, if IK' had not been already dead. 
They pointed to the weight of the stone that closed the 
sepulchre ; to the presence of the soldiers; and cited the 
testimony of the Roman officer to Pilate, and many 
other arguments bearing on the subject 

But wlicii the objection was .-till pressed, and medical 
evidence was brought forward to support it, some emi- 
nent German physicians (the two Gruners and Riohtar, 
and more satisfactorily Doctor William Stroude) took up 
the matter; and not only proved the absolute certainty of 
death from the wound of the lance, and the flow of blood 
and water from the pericardium, but demonstrated the 
fact, which makes a deeper impression on every C hristian 
mind than any circumstance of the dolorous Passion, that 
our Divine Saviour had died of a broken heart, the heart 
having literally burst from the excess of His mental and 
corporal agony. 

In the same way. when constant efforts continued to 
be made to disprove the unity of the human race, not- 
withstanding the accumulation of facts to show that vari- 
ous causes lead to change of color, and peculiarities of 
formation, the attention thus directed to this subject, 
tended to promote the comparative study of languages, 
which, as far as it has yet been pursued, establishes con- 
clusively and evidently, from the strong affinity between 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM. 367 

them, the common origin of all these creatures of God, 
who enjoy the holy power of speech ; and demonstrates 
that the members of the human race, how T ever widely 
scattered, and differing however much in many important 
characteristics, yet belong to the same original family. 

The Philosophers who cling to the Evolution theory of 
Religion, will also, I have no doubt, if they are persistent 
in their view, secure another triumph for Catholic Chris- 
tianity, by concentrating the minds of men of extensive 
learning on the original habits of the human race, till 
evidence beyond reply is brought forward to show, that 
such a theory is directly in conflict with the earliest his- 
torical records of the primeval Revelation. 

In the next chapter, I mean to say a few words on the 
bete noire of all systems of Religion — the accursed thing 
called Spiritism. 



308 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Catholic Christianity and Spiritism. 

r PIIE spirit of this age is unquestionably a spirit of 
progress. Whether this progress be real or only 
apparent, it does not so much matter in connection with 
the subject of this chapter. The main idea of thinking 
and active men is, that we must go forward somehow: 
it would be the worst error conceivable, not simply to 
halt in the onward march of intellectual and materia] 
development, but to take a Btep backwards. As Charles 
Dickens has said somewhere, he would be a mere obstruc- 
tivc, who would attempt to induce the surging and ever- 
hurrying crowd to join with him, in putting back the 
hand- on tin Lrreul dial of time. We may not even pause 
to think seriously over what was once believed to be the 
wisdom of past ages ; "nous avons change tout cela" 

This is, I believe the irresistible prejudice which pre- 
vents non-Catholic Chri.-tians, as well as Free-thinkers, 
from considering patiently what Catholic Christianity has 
to say about Spiritism. When our theologians raise a cry 
of warning, and point to the proofs of its diabolical char- 
acter, they are at once met by the counter-cry, that the 
dark ages of witchcraft, and magic, and the occult sciences, 
with their goblins and demons, have vanished in these en- 
lightened times. The men of progress, the bright-eyed 
eagles, who exult in the noontide splendor of the sun of 
progress, cannot consort with the blinking owls that 
affect only gloom and its shadowy horrors. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 369 

I feel therefore, that anything I can say about the 
dangers of this mischievous delusion, will serve only to 
warn Catholics against it. 

Luckily however, as I noticed in the last chapter, the 
teaching of the spirits is not found to pay. Its most ar- 
dent votaries derive neither wealth, nor honor, nor glory 
of any kind, from their devotion. Its high-priests are 
not looked up to by the multitude, as Prophets, or in- 
spired sages ; and so it leads a sort of spasmodic existence. 
Occasionally when trade is dull, and active minds grow 
tired of reading and ordinary recreation, they catch the 
ardor of a languid excitement, from some wandering 
spark, who professes to know the secrets of this myste- 
rious belief, and to be able to initiate disciples into an 
acquaintance with its wonders. If any of these latter are 
developed into promising mediums, vanity, the love of 
notice, and the sense of possessing a power not given to 
others of their friends, fan the smouldering fire into some- 
thing like a light, that attracts curiosity ; and so it blazes 
up for a while, and then dies out, leaving behind it how- 
ever a noxious effluvium in some morbid natures, that 
may, for a long time, poison the freshness of healthful 
pleasures, or, it may be, blight the happiness of a life. 
This is the ordinary story of Spiritism, as far as careful 
inquiry has shown it to me in South Africa. 

It may be, and I believe it is, far different in parts of 
America, where it is the accepted and acknowledged be- 
lief of hundreds of thousands. In England, it has not 
made much way ; in France, and Germany, for a while, 
it promised to have a successful career : but it is dying 
out in the countries of Europe, where it is now regarded 
as something less than " the ghost of a Religion." 

Why it should have established itself permanently in 



370 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



the new world, is, I think, easily explained on the Cath- 
olic principles concerning it. In America, unfortu- 
nately Agnosticism, has long prevailed among certain 
classes. These have, even for generations, broken 
with the traditions of the past : they have almost for- 
gotten God and His Christ, and through that want of 
something supernatural, which exists in human nature, 
they have taken this superstition to their bosoms, and 
cherished it. 

It seems, among such as these, to reward the affection 
and earnestness of its worshippers by extraordinary man- 
ifestations. I have read descriptions of these wonders, 
that were startling even to those, who learn, from the 
teaching of the Church, their true cause. Voices, shad- 
owy shapes, the p<»wer of speaking unknown tongues, and 
throwing off impromptu verses by the hour, in the per- 
son of uneducated mediums, aerial music of an enchanting 
character, brilliant waving lights, etc., keep alive the 
faith of enthusiastic spiritists in America. 

Europe, even in those countries where Protestantism 
and Infidelity have so long waged war against the Church, 
is too deeply leavened w ith the old Faith, to desire, or to 
place confidence in such manifestations. They might 
too awaken a slumbering faith; and as our Divine Lord 
tells us, Beelzebub is too wise to fight against himself — 
"And if Satan is divided against himself, how shall his 
kingdom stand" (Matt. xii. 2G), the arch-enemy of man- 
kind puts forth, amongst those who have a remnant of 
Christian faith, only just enough of his " lying signs and 
wonders," to satisfy curiosity and gradually lure his vic- 
tims into the toils. 

It is, I am convinced, their total ignorance of this 
principle, and of the true source of spiritual manifesta- 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 371 



tions, that has led many remarkable American mediums 
into serious difficulties, when they tried their powers be- 
fore large audiences in the old world, Hard-headed 
Englishmen congratulated themselves, when these in- 
dividuals were convicted before the magistrates of pal- 
pable trickery and fraud, that their practical good sense 
had exposed the wretched swindle. They seem to for- 
get that their cousins beyond the Atlantic, are quite equal 
to any people on the face of the earth, in shrewdness and 
sagacity, and that a smart Yankee would see through the 
performance of the cleverest trick that was ever mani- 
pulated, before a cautious Englishman would have got 
over his first impressions of wonder, at the marvellous 
skill of the conjurer. 

There is manifestly another explanation than that 
offered by the convictions of fraud, or the performances 
in the Egyptian Hall, London, to account for the progress 
of Spiritism in America, and its discomfiture and failure 
in England. 

The only rational explanation is this, that as the 
manifestations of the spirits could not be depended on, 
wherever they were likely to encounter the disturbing 
influence of Faith, Slade, and others of his class, were 
bound to supply the failing power, by practising the 
tricks of an ordinary conjurer. It would never do, to 
come forward, on the stage of a crowded theatre or Hall, 
and tell the audience that the circumstances were un- 
favorable, and the spirits had "struck work." Any one 
can tell what would be the immediate consequences of 
such an announcement, even though it were accompanied 
by the assurance that the money would be returned at 
the door. Thus they tried some clumsy tricks, and did 
them so badly, that a smart child could have detected the 



372 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



attempted deception in a moment. How the confirmed 
spiritists in America must have been amused, at the 
comments in the English newspapers on the exposures 
of their pet Religion ! 

I have seen the exhibitions of Maskelyne and Cook, 
and wondered how people, of ordinary intelligence, who 
haw been taught to reason from effect to cause, could 
possibly run away with the notion, that the cleverly 
arranged mechanism of these performers, or their con- 
fident assurance, or anything of the kind, which might 
excite the wonder of children, could be reasonably 
assigned as the cause of that fascination, which, in 
America, has continued so many thousands in their self- 
sacrificing support of Spiritism. As well might they 
maintain that mere tricks performed by the priests and 
augurs of Paganism, had enslaved minds greater than 
this present world of petty business concerns, and in- 
ordinate conceit and vanity, ever beheld. When we look 
on the ruins of the works of " the great days of old," 
and mark the steady progress, and perseverance, and 
giant resolve devoted to the accomplishment of works 
that in their mere conception would takeaway the breath 
of the great engineers and master-builders of our time, 
we cannot but feel astounded that the men of these old 
times should be imagined capable of such puerile cre- 
dulity. 

Do I therefore mean to say, that I actually believe 
that there is anything but sleight-of-hand and trickery in 
Spiritism ? I no more doubt the presence of deviltry in 
the manifestations, that have led away so many from 
Christianity, than I doubt my own existence. 

The most profound theologian of modern times, Per- 
rone, has, in his work "De Tirtute Religionist so 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 373 



powerfully and conclusively argued the whole question, 
that it is impossible for any one who studies this work, 
to entertain a doubt about the agency of diabolical in- 
fluence in Spiritism properly so called. This book of 
Perrone, which received the special approval of the late 
Pope Pius the ISTinth, has accumulated such a mass of 
evidence, and has so minutely and clearly answered every 
objection against the doctrine of the Catholic Church on 
the point, that the keenest perception cannot discover a 
flaw in the reasoning. He does not trouble himself with 
an examination of the higher manifestations, which, 
although founded on grave and respectable evidence, 
might, by their very extraordinary character, excite amaze- 
ment, and cause the serious-minded reader to question 
if the Providence of God could give so great power to 
His infernal enemies. 

He takes up the ordinary phenomena, with which many 
in this colony are unfortunately too familiar, — the bang- 
ing about of heavy articles of furniture, the life-like 
movements and intelligence with which these things ap- 
pear endowed, at the bare touch of a medium ; the rap- 
ping out of answers, so connected with questions pro- 
posed in the interior consciousness of the curious, and 
manifested by no outward sign, that they have caused 
swooning, and really dangerous excitement in the nervous 
system of many who had been tempted to make trial of 
these unholy experiments ; and has demonstrated that, 
neither Divine influence, nor that of good angels, nor the 
souls of deceased friends, but veritable demons, are at 
the bottom of these hateful exhibitions. 

About seven years ago, I felt it my duty, hearing from 
creditable sources that seances were becoming a fashion- 
able recreation in certain towns of the colony to give a 



374 catholic Christianity and spiritism. 



lecture on modern Spiritism and thus sound a note of 
warning. As I fully expected, I drew on myself much 
censure in the newspapers. I was accused of giving im- 
portance to ridiculous ephemeral wonders, and encour- 
aging superstition, and attempting to bring out stupid 
exaggerations of long-forgotten stories of the dark ages. 
My only hope was, that my carefully measured words 
might cheek the evil. 1 think what I said had some good 
effect; and that it deterred a few good people, not Cath- 
olics, from meddling with matter.-, about which they 
knew very little, and the familiarity with which might 

have been followed by serioi:> eon e<jiieiiees to themselves 
and others. 

The line taken by those who seem to hope that they 
can put down Spiritism by boldly denying that there are, 
or ever were, any manifestations, except those which Dr. 
Carpenter has attempted to account for, under the theory 
of u unconscious cerebration," or "involuntary muscular 
action," on the part of those w ho in a circle touch the 
table, or other article of furniture that is expected to 
spin or twirl, is simply ridiculous, in the judgment of 
those who have witnessed anything beyond the first 
attempts of amateurs in this direction. 

A writer in the Times, when these learned explana- 
tions made their appearance, very justly observed, that 
if scientific men had no better reasons to offer except 
these and similar theories, wrapped up in technical 
phraseology, they had much better he silent altogether. 
Such puerile attempts at mystification, which were over- 
strained beyond the limits of common-sense, and did not 
take into account the actual phenomena, as attested by 
credible witnesses, only served to establish more firmly, 
what they were meant to destroy. lie was quite right. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 375 

I have heard young men describe what they had wit- 
nessed at certain seances, and after expressing their 
amazement at the extraordinary evolutions of pieces of 
heavy furniture, which seemed to be animated, to move 
hither and thither of their own accord, and even climb 
up walls, invariably wound up with some remark upon 
the singular effects of electricity and magnetism. I could 
not help saying, on one occasion, to a young friend, " As 
you have never studied these sciences, you should be 
careful in giving dogmatic opinions about them, in the 
presence of those who have; you may make serious 
blunders." 

Electricity and its cognate science are indeed doing 
very wonderful things; and the storing of this subtle 
something, which we call a fluid, and the other " im- 
ponderables" — light and heat, may yet, in this age of 
invention, revolutionize the ways of the present genera- 
tion. But no conceivable development of these powers 
can, without a cunningly prepared and costly apparatus, 
give apparent life to the furniture of an ordinary room, 
which happens by mere chance to be selected as the scene 
of these mysterious operations. 

There is scarcely a limit to the surprising things which 
can be done on a prepared stage, and with suitable ap 
paratus. It is almost beyond credibility what apparently 
intelligent acts will be gone through by mere seeming 
automata, such as these exhibited in the Egyptian Hall ; 
but every one knows that inanimate dolls do not play 
whist, and execute neat drawings, and life-like portraits, 
unless they are worked by the movements of an intelli- 
gent and well-trained human being, who, screened from 
sight, deftly manipulates the carefully prepared me- 
chanism. 



o?6 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



When we see inanimate things rap out, by indicating 
the letters of the alphabet, a long and well-connected an- 
swer to a question, whether uttered aloud, or written 
privately on a piece of paper, and carefully sealed and 
held in the hand of a reliable witness, and that this 
process is carried on in a well-known room, where 
there is no place fur concealed wires or apparatus of 
any Idlld, and where the trial is attempted without 
any previous arrangement, a sensible man, superior to 
vulgar prejudice, will conclude thai an intelligent being 
has communicated its power, in some mysterious way, 
to the lifeless wood, or brass, or whatever else it may 
he that appears to give the answer. 

When 1 was in ( uTinany. a few years ago, I ashed 
a venerahle ecclesiastic. wh<> had heen for many years 
a distinguished professor of theology, and was at the 
time tilling one of the highest offices in the Church, if 
he had ever met with a case <»f Spiritism. He told me 
lie had met with die ver\ reinarkahle case, and that it 
had left no doubt on his mind that the person affected 
was under the influence of the devil. Before he had 
this experience, lie said, that he had scouted the whole 
thing, as too contemptible for serious examination; he 
believed that everything extraordinary attributed to it 
was the effect of trickery and deceit. He was visiting, 
one day, in the lunatic asylum of the city where he 
lived, a young person, whose mind had given way, 
through addiction to table-turning and the like. She 
had lucid intervals ; and it was on one of these occasions, 
when the patient was perfectly sane and tranquil, that 
he visited her. He spoke to her of the folly of trifling 
with things, which had so seriously affected her health. 
But she told him, that whenever she touched the table, 



CATHOLTC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 377 



it became animated, and that she could not help believ- 
ing what she had seen so constantly, " See/' she said, 
rising and touching a table in the room, " it will follow 
me like a pet animal." To his surprise it did so ; and 
then, for the first time, it flashed upon his mind, that 
there was something diabolical connected with this move- 
ment. His visit had been unexpected, there was only a 
touch given to the table : she did not keep her hand 
upon it, and it seemed to obey her directions. There 
was no possibility of wires, or any communication be- 
tween her and the piece of furniture. Under the impulse 
of the strong impression made upon his mind, he prayed 
interiorly that God might have pity on the unfortunate 
victim of diabolical illusion, and break the chain that 
bound her to the enemy of her salvation. He had 
scarcely completed his short prayer, when she exclaimed, 
that the table was dead or insensible to her command. 
She saw that her visitor had in some mysterious way 
controlled its movement, and earnestly begged for an 
explanation. It was given, and led to her prompt con- 
version, and the permanent restoration of her reason. 

It seems to me that a case like this is beyond cavil 
and that it should be quite enough in itself, to deter all 
right-minded people from meddling with this dangerous 
folly. Some will say what harm can there possibly be in 
amusing one's self with one's companions over the erratic 
movements of a piece of furniture, which is in all proba- 
bility set going by the act voluntary or involuntary of 
some one in the company, or in watching the absurd 
jerking of the pencil of Planchette, particularly when all 
notion of dealing with the powers of darkness is never 
for a moment entertained ? 

Yet I have been assured by persons, who I know were 



878 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



not deceiving me, that even in these seemingly harmless 
diversions, impressions have been received, that seriously 
affected the nerves of some one or other of those engaged 
in them. 

A medium, said to possess a remarkable power, told 
me, when I remonstrated with him, on amusing himself 
and other- with exhibitions of his influence, that he never 
began without saying the Lord's Prayer. The very fact 
of cluing so, I said, indicate*] a suspicion that there was 
something wrong in the practice; and that the effect of 
the prayer was vitiated by the positive act. I see that 
the same view is taken of similar eases given by 
Pen-one. 

But it will be said, that there may he some subtle law 
in nature which produces these eiTecK kk Who can know 
all the laws of nature," says the experimenter, "and 
therefore, who can say there is not?" " Perhaps," he 
may add, "I may be the lucky one to stumble on some 
principle of science hitherto unknown/' 

A chance discovery of this kind is most unlikely, 
seeing that scientific men of the greatest abilities have 
given their attention to these phenomena. As to not 
understanding all the laws of nature, every one knows, 
that it is directly contrary to one of the fundamental 
laws of nature that an inert body will move itself; and 
that these movements are opposed to other well-known 
laws that form the very basis of true science. 

" But how can an immaterial spirit act on matter ?" 
It might as well be said, how can this soul of ours act on 
the material body? If one will read the opening chapter 
of the book of Job, he will see reason to bless God, that 
the physical power of the evil one is held in check by the 
Providence of God. We might otherwise have some- 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



379 



thing to deplore in His app ointment s, far beyond the 
evils which ordinarily afflict mankind. 

There is one great principle which forms the basis of 
all sound reasoning, and this is, that the effect cannot 
exceed the cause which produces it, or, in other words, 
that the cause includes the effect. If a mere touch can 
communicate life and intelligence to an inert piece of 
furniture, this axiom of reason would be overturned. 

But the fact is, wherever there is question of the super- 
natural, non-Catholics, as a rule, will not reason at all. 
Men have brought themselves to believe that there is no 
Devil, and they are doing ail they can to get rid of the 
troublesome idea of a Hell. Eternity of punishment, 
and the sanction of the Divine law, must, with the dis- 
integration of Catholic dogma, which is the natural and 
logical consequence of Free-thought, be somehow cast 
away with other revealed truths. 

If human reason is free to reject one mystery, why 
should it not have the power of repudiating another, that 
is most disagreeable to natural feeling ? And, if there 
be no Eternity of punishment hereafter, there is then no 
essential difference between good and evil. The end of 
both being the same, they are essentially the same. And 
if this difference is not real, what is the use of troubling 
ourselves about sin or temptation or the devil ? Why in 
this case, we might say, should God have given up His 
only Son to deliver us from an unreal evil. Facilis 
decensus, all melt away in the presence of unbelief, just 
as snow before the rays of the sun. 

Men should think of this, and that there is no halting, 
once they have begun to doubt and deride revealed truths. 
If they ridicule the idea of the existence of a devil, and 
persist in disregarding all supernatural phenomena, and 



380 CATHOLIC , CHRISTIAN LTV AM I) SPIRITISM, 



acting in direct opposition to the principles which guide 
them in the ordinary affairs of life that demand investi- 
gation, they will, of course, succeed in keeping far from 
them the disquieting thoughts that — "our adversary the 
devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he 
may devour" (1 Pet. v. 8). 

But I would ask Christians, that is to say, men who 
really believe in the Divine mission of the Saviour, but 
who have been brought to deride the existence of the 
I tevilj what is meant by these words of the Apostle, "lie 
that committeth sin is of the Devil ; for the Devil sinneth 
from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God 
appeared that He might destroy the works of the Devil" 
s I John iii. 8). The meaning of the passage evidently 
IS, not that our Divine Lord has put an end to the exist- 
ence of the Devil ; for those who sin belong to this great 
enemy of mankind; but that He might destroy this work 
of the Devil in the souls of men of Good wilL 

I have heard some advocate- of Spiritism say, — men 
who had been familiar with supernatural manifestations, 
and fancied that good spirits, angels, or the souls of de- 
ceased friends, might have caused them, " How can the 
Devil be the cause of so much good ? Many, by means 
of Spiritism, seeing the wonders it effects, have been 
converted from Materialism ; and the messages we re- 
ceive are generally pious exhortation-, and perfectly con- 
formable with the most exalted morality.-' 

The answer, that at once suggests itself, is found in 
the words of St. Paul, where he is speaking of fake 
Apostles, and deceitful laborers, transforming themselvee 
into the Apostles of Christ. " Xo wonder," says the 
Apostle, "for Satan himself transformeth himself into 
au angel of light" (2 Cor. xi. li). 



CATHOLIC CHKISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 381 



These apparently holy messages are only in perfect 
keeping with the artifices of him, who was " a liar from 
the beginning." He promised fine things to our first 
parents ; and attempted to sednce even our Divine Lord, 
by a show of kindness and sympathy for His hunger, 
when he tried the temptation in the wilderness. If 
Materialists are brought, by these unholy means, to re- 
cognize the existence of spirits, they will not be brought 
nearer to God by this means ; but rather attracted to the 
eternal enemy of God and man. 

Perrone, quoting from many distinguished writers on 
the subject, shows, by many examples, that once the un- 
fortunate victims of this superstition are caught in the 
toils, they receive messages of a very different character, 
absolutely shocking in their open rebellion against God, 
and their revolting suggestions. When the Devil assailed 
our Divine Lord, it was not long before he threw aside 
the mask, and said — " all these will I give thee, if falling 
down, thou wilt adore me" (Matt. iv. 9). 

Those mediums who eschew the society of turbulent 
spirits, that at once reveal their true character by blas- 
phemous and obscene language, and affect the company 
of the more gentle kind, who indicate their presence by 
soft taps, and sweet words of comfort and pity, will, if 
they persevere in these communications, be, some day or 
other, as startled as was the witch of Endor, when the 
ghost of a just man suddenly appeared in the midst of 
her "familiars." 

But may not these spirits be the souls of dear friends, 
who are dead ? This is the greatest delusion of all. 
Catholics, of course, see at once that this could not be. 
The souls enjoying the beatific vision, cannot be torn 
from their bliss, by the incantations of a medium. 



382 CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 



Those who are expiating the punishment due to sin for- 
given, or venial faults, cleansing away " the wood and 
hay and stubble," or imperfections from the "gold, 
silver and precious stones" of their good works, " shall 
not go out from their prison till they have paid the last 
farthing" (Matt. v. 20). What power on earth shall re- 
lease from their bondage those who are lost beyond re- 
demption ? 

Men, who are not Catholics, and have the least self- 
respect, loathe and detest the very name of the accursed 
thing, which pretends to the power of calling up their 
souls after death, for the amusement of an ignorant 
crowd, who hang on the words of a stupid medium by 
whose ongrammatica] or slangy language, their senti- 
ments are supposed to be expressed. 

This notion, that the spirits who speak through me- 
diums, are the souls of departed friends, shows that the 
delusion, gross as it is, is not altogether modern ; for we 
find St. Thomas quoting St. Augustine, and St. John 
Chrysostom in denunciation of it. "Demons frequently 
pretend that they are the souls of the dead, to confirm 
in their error, the Gentiles who entertained this belief" 
(St. Thomas, Part I., Q. 117. Art. 4). But the revolting 
belief goes back much farther, even to the earliest days 
of Paganism ; for amongst the abominations mentioned 
in Deuteronomy, as abhorred by God, is the very one 
of seeking knowledge and truth from the dead. " Let 
not there be found among you one that consulteth 
pythonic spirits, or fortune-tellers, or that seeketh truth 
from the dead, for the Lord abhorreth all these things" 
(Deuteronomy xviii. 11, 12). 

I say this is the greatest delusion of anything connected 
with Spiritism, and the most fatal, because it is the most 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITISM. 383 

attractive. When the clever demons, who by their fall 
have not lost their superior intelligence, and other gifts 
essential to their nature, counterfeit the ways and manner 
of a deceased friend or relative of those who invoke the 
spirits, they bind the unfortunate victim of their deceit 
to their service by bonds, that it seems almost hopeless, 
by any instruction or argument, ever to loosen. 

Learned priests in Europe have told me, that, when 
Catholics have been thus seduced, and afterwards touched 
with remorse expose this plague-spot of their souls, it 
seems by their constant relapse, to be absolutely incurable. 
Well may we say of such deplorable evils, with the great 
dramatist in Macbeth — 

Unnatural deeds 
Do breed unnatural troubles, 
God, God, forgive us all ! 



384 



CONCLUSION. 



CHAPTER XX 
Conclusion. 

TF what T have, with much labor and careful study and 
-■- consideration, put together in the preceding pages, 
prove, through the Divine blessing, a help to earnest 
souls, who are seeking a knowledge of the truth " as it is 
in Jesus/' it will be the happiest work of my life. If it 
is not blessed with this desirable fruit, I hope that He, 
who sees the secrets of the heart, will be mindful of my 
intention, and for Christ's sake, whose blessed will it is 
that none should perish, pardon my manifold sins. 

I have endeavored, all through, to set Catholic Chris- 
tianity before my readers, as a whole body of doctrine 
and practice; and carefully to distinguish both, from 
ordinary misapprehension and misrepresentation. It 
seemed to me, that a book, in which this simple view 
would be steadily kept before the mind of those who may 
care to read it, and in which the sense would not be 
obscured by heaps of learned arguments, and attempts at 
fine language, is a real want at the present time. 

The desire to do this so effectually, that it might catch 
the attention, even of those who would cursorily turn 
over its pages, has I see, now that I look back upon what 
I have written, led me occasionally to repeat in another 
form, what had been already previously written ; to 
apply, for example, a certain train of thought, laid down 
in a general way, to individual sentiments and percep- 
tions. I kept before me steadily the Horatian maxim, 
to avoid obscurity in attempting over-brevity ; and found 



CONCLUSION. 



385 



it difficult at times to escape the other extreme of prosi- 
ness, in the bringing out of what seemed to me a matter 
of peculiar importance. If this will not prove wearisome 
to those who follow the argument, and help to develop 
more distinctly my meaning, I will cheerfully bear the 
castigation of critics on this redundancy of style. 

We have a great number of admirable books in English, 
which expound Catholic doctrine in the clearest and 
most forcible manner ; but they generally take up a doc- 
trine by itself, just as it probably would be taken up by 
a non-Catholic or Infidel, define it accurately, and sup- 
port it by sound and logical argument, and then answer 
the objections which are urged against it, as it stands. 
This is scarcely fair to the body of revealed doctrine, as 
taught by the Catholic Church. 

The Ileal Presence, for example, however clearly 
proved, as a distinct dogma of Faith, cannot strike the 
mind of a stranger to our Religion, as it will, when it is 
brought out as the complement of the Incarnation. It is 
the same with the other sacraments : each may, and does 
rest on distinct proofs ; but the whole sacramental system 
strikes, even a non-Catholic, with its majestic beauty and 
perfect consistency, when the system is seen to grow up, 
almost by a natural unity, from the " Word made flesh" 
— the great abiding sacrament of the new law. 

I have therefore endeavored, as much as possible, to 
blend together all the mysteries and doctrines of Catho- 
licity in one great centre of religious truth, whence 
emanate, as so many rays of light, the various devotions 
and practices, and the entire life and spirit of the Church. 

How far the study of Catholic belief regarded seriatim 
has caused misapprehension, I cannot say : but I feel 
certain, that considerable difficulty has been experienced 



386 



CONCLUSION. 



by intelligent Protestants, when they have tried to master 
the real teaching of the Church, by taking up her doc- 
trines in detail. 

Let them study for example, the worship of the Sacred 
Heart ; what more natural than that this devotion should 
be considered, by diligent inquirers, a sort of materialistic 
object of superstition, when viewed by itself. It seems 
absolutely repul>ive to Protestant notions, that a mere 
combination of flesh, and blood, and muscle, could, by 
any process of reasoning, be set up as an object of wor- 
ship : and it is not surprising therefore, that many intelli- 
gent journalists, and writers in Reviews and Magazines, 
have adopted the Jan>eni-tic idea of this devotion, and 
denounced it as gross materialism. 

But let it be considered in it- intimate connection with 
the Incarnation, and all these difficulties vanish; nay 
more they seem To bring forth, into the clearest light, 
the true doctrine of the Incarnation. I would even go 
so far as to maintain, that the mystery of the "Word 
made flesh" cannot be received by Faith, in all its pleni- 
tude, unless the doctrine of the Sacred Heart is accepted 
as explained by the Church. 

Those who speak and write of the materialistic worship 
of the Sacred Heart, show, by their misunderstanding of 
the very elements of this devotion, that they do not com- 
prehend Catholic teaching in reference to the perfect 
union of the Divine and human natures in one person. 
I think I have shown conclusively, in what I have writ- 
ten on the subject, that even the Catholic belief pro- 
claimed in the General Council of Ephesus, that Mary is 
the mother of God, does not develop the truth so plainly 
and unmistakably, as it is brought home to the mind of 
every Catholic by this devotion. 



CONCLUSION. 



387 



"We may believe that the soul and body, or the entire 
human nature of the man-God, is inseparably united 
with the second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity ; 
and yet falter at the inevitable conclusions of the doc- 
trine, as it is plainly expressed in the devotion of the 
Sacred Heart, and determined by orthodox teaching. 
When the soul of our Divine Lord was really separated 
from the body by death, and the lifeless corpse lay on 
the lap of the Yirgin Mother, or was placed in the sepul- 
chre, we might imagine that, in the period after His 
death, that preceded the Resurrection, there was a change 
in the relations, that had been established between the 
union of the two natures. We might be tempted to 
suppose, that the Divinity clung to the active and living 
principle, and leaving the inanimate body, for a time at 
least, had accompanied the soul of our Divine Lord to 
the lower regions, where the spirits of the saints and Pa- 
triarchs of the old dispensation awaited their deliverance. 

But it is not so ; such a separation would, as all theolo- 
gians believe, have broken, in its very essence, the bond 
which makes us children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, 
and heirs to His kingdom. God the Son allied Himself 
to our nature perfectly ; not to the soul only, but to the 
body also, to every part of the human nature, which He 
had made His own ; not alone to the head, or heart, or 
limbs, that were pierced for our sakes, but to every drop 
of the Precious blood shed for our salvation. The whole 
human nature was so intimately united to the Divine per- 
son, that not one particle of the Flesh and Blood derived 
from the Virgin Mother could, as long as they remained 
flesh and blood, for an instant be absolutely severed from 
it. 

This is a marvellous truth, which requires the entire 



388 



CONCLUSION. 



subjection of our reason to the word of God. The unre- 
generate reason startles at tlie proposition, questions it, 
rebels against it, cannot possibly receive it without Faith. 
It is only this supernatural gift of God, that enables us 
to receive the astounding mystery. 

Once duly instructed, by the infallible living voice, 
which even scepticism perceives is absolutely necessary 
to the full acceptance of Revelation, we then perceive 
the true nature of these bonds, by which the Son of God 
has allied Himself to a fallen race. Then, with the sense 
of Faith, looking as it were through the eyes of the 
mother of sorrows, we behold the angels worshipping 
the inanimate Body, and see them clustering round each 
drop of the Precious Blood, that flowed for our sakes, in 
the garden of Gethseniani, and bespattered the hall of 
Pilate, or was trodden under loot by the crowd that 
thronged to Calvary, 

"What a wondrous help is this to realize all that is given 
us in the Blessed Sacrament — "Summit boni, svmunt 
mali" desecrated by diabolical passion, cast out into the 
muddy streets, pierced by daggers in honor of the demon, 
blended with poison for purposes of murder, to what in- 
dignities has not the most Holy Eucharist been subjected ! 

AVhen we picture to ourselves these marvels of Divine 
patience, as they stand out distinctly before us in the 
doctrine of the Sacred Heart, as in no other, we can ex- 
claim with St. Thomas — " res mirabiUs ! manducat 
Dominum* pa up / . serous et hwm/iUs" and bowing to 
the earth, in humble adoration, thank the good God, as 
best we may, for such prodigies of mercy. 

If I have said anything, in my remarks on sentimental 
Religion, that will cause pain to earnest Christians, who 
are not Catholics, I can only express my regret that they 



CONCLUSION. 



389 



should be offended, by what I felt it my duty to say in 
the interests of truth. 

I have often felt, I feel it now acutely while I write, 
that their earnest attachment to the mere traditions of 
the Faith " once delivered to the saints," their heartfelt 
reverence for the crumbs of Holy Doctrine, that have, in 
spite of sectarian rage, been saved and piously guarded 
by so many devout souls, shame the languid faith of too 
many, who, through the gratuitous mercy of God, have 
without any merit on their part, been called to sit as 
guests at the bountiful table which He has spread for 
Catholics. What shall we plead in our defence, at the 
awful tribunal of judgment, when these shall rise up 
against us, and say, had they only heard of the good 
things, so plentifully set before us, they would have 
rivalled the saints, in the fervor of their unbounded love 
for so good a Saviour. 

But I cannot help repeating what I have stated already, 
that there is no greater enemy to the true Church, than 
those false teachers, who undertake to feed the hungry 
with the husks of this piety of mere feeling, and by this 
means, satisfy their urgent wants, and prevent them from 
throwing themselves, sorrowing and repenting, at the 
feet of their loving Father. 

When I picture to myself with what anxious care such 
as these prepare themselves for the Lord ? s Supper, how 
they strive to repair their faults, to forgive those who 
trespass against them, to excite in their souls the rever- 
ence and tender affection to our Lord, which animated 
the Apostles, as they ate the last Pasch with their Divine 
Master ; and how fervently they ponder on His suffer- 
ings, while they eat and drink mere bread and wine in 
remembrance of Him, I feel humbled and abashed at my 



390 



CONCLUSION. 



want of a lively faith, as often as I partake of the true 
Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion. 

How different would be the aspect of this weary world, 
if Christians of all denominations were made one, in the 
participation of the Blessed Sacrament ! Thus animating 
one another by mutual prayer, and good-will, Christians 
would exhibit to an unbelieving world, the most striking 
proof of the Divine origin and character of the Religion 
Christ has left us. 

Our Divine Lord prayed, at his last supper, that not 
only they who were present, but those who would believe 
in their teaching, might, notwithstanding the perversity 
of our free-will, be thus united, made one as He and the 
adorable Persons of the Blessed Trinity are one. Conld 
this have been accomplished, even by the marvels of Di- 
vine (iraee given sulliciently to every one, we should hear 
nothing of the enterics of unbelief. Alas! they who de- 
ride the Blessed name of the Saviour, can well say, in 
mockery and scorn, what the Pagans were forced to say, 
in admiration of the first followers of the Crucified, — 
u See how those Christians love one another." 

But we are free to do as we please. Though the 
charity of Christ " presseth us," when we behold the 
excess of His love, as it is exhibited in the teaching of 
Catholic Christianity, it does not constrain or compel us, 
in spite of our prejudices, to be "of one mind," and to 
confess, as it were u with one mouth" all things which He 
and His Apostles have announced to the world. We 
can only pray with all our hearts, that good men may be 
brought somehow to see the beauty of Catholic doctrine ; 
and thus, if separated from our brethren in Christ, to be 
really united to Him in His desire that there should be 
" one fold and one Shepherd." 



CONCLUSION. 



391 



I have not entered deeply into the consideration of the 
Phases of modern Unbelief. I felt it would do no good 
to let my fellow-Christians know the full extent of these 
aberrations from revealed truth, which are exhibited in 
every new theory of Religion. It might perhaps shake 
the faith of weak brethren in the Providence of God. 

No doubt when the blasphemies of the great Revolu- 
tion were echoed through the world, believers in Christ 
could hardly restrain their indignation. They must have 
cried out, in horror and amazement, as they heard that a 
worthless woman was set up on the altar of the true 
God, and worshipped, amid the acclamations of an ex- 
cited people,—" How long, O Lord, how long wilt Thou 
endure this profanation ?" 

But because God is patient and long-suffering, men 
hold their peace now, when Agnosticism or black hideous 
Materialism, or Pantheism, or even the worship of the 
Devil, invite the adoration or the homage of the unbeliev- 
ing masses. But if God is patient, " He is not mocked " 
with impunity. 

There are sins that cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance ; 
and surely, above all other sins, is the great "Revolt," 
for which the coldness and indifference of these latter 
days seems preparing us. I never hear that beautiful 
prayer of the Church — " Spare, O Lord, spare Thy peo- 
ple, and be not angry with us forever," that I do not 
feel it should be the constant cry of all Christendom. 
God is terrible in His anger ; but He is most terrible, as 
the Prophet declared, when " His indignation seemed to 
rest above the head of His people," and no great tribula- 
tion fell upon them, to remind them of His wrath. 

There were great nations in the world before now, 
which experienced the fatal consequences of forsaking 



392 



CONCLUSION. 



God, for the service of His enemies. As we read the 
vivid pictures which able hands have sketched, in recent 
years, of the chastisements of Imperial Rome, and mark 
the fulfilment of the woes pronounced against this Baby- 
lon of the Apocalypse, we see as clearly the hand of an 
avenging God, as it was manifested in the destruction of 
the cities of the plain. When Goth, and Vandal, and 
Hun, buret down upon the great mistress of the nations, 
like successive ocean waves, and swept before them her 
mighty palace- and temples, no wonder the most distant 
provinces of the vast empire, beheld, in these rude shocks, 
the marks of the " terrible scourge of God." 

Standing, as 1 stood some years ago, OD the Palatine, 
and picturing to Olie'fl Belf the splendor and magnificence 
of a Roman triumph in the palmy days of the Empire; 
watching in imagination the interminable throng of cap- 
tives of all countries, toiling along the route under the 
weight of the gold, and silver, and precious things, car- 
ried awav by the spoiler, and the flashing armor, and the 
banners of the proud legionaries, hearing the deafening 
clang of trumpet-, and the martial music, one can realize 
what is meant by "the pride of life," and not wonder, 
that the victorious (\e-ar or General should need one be- 
side him to remind him constantly that he was not yet a 
God. With such a scene extending amid the miles and 
miles of stately buildings, and glorious monuments of 
that vast wealth and wonderful civilization, away over 
the seven hills, and farther than eye can reach on the 
Campagna, and then looking down on the ruin and deso- 
lation in the Forum beneath his feet, the lesson is 
brought home of the perishable nature of man's grandest 
achievements. Under such circumstances, the traveller 
from distant lands feels so sensibly that " this world pass- 



CONCLUSION. 



393 



eth away," that another vision, sketched by a master- 
hand, naturally suggests itself. Men filled with the 
spirit of the world, proud of their country's progress, and 
worshippers of its wealth, may smile at the often-quoted 
extract of Macaulay. 

But there are already signs in the North, and South, 
and East, and West, which might chill their ardor, and 
even the ghost of a vision, like that of the " battle of 
Dorking," might cause a numbing of the heart to steal 
upon them, of startling significance. Mighty cities of 
the past, that once seemed, to their inhabitants, durable 
as the everlasting hills, are now a mass of shapeless ruins, 
melting away year after year into utter desolation. His- 
tory repeats itself ; and future generations, not far re- 
mote, may realize to their dismay that the accumulated 
wealth and power of nations is not the property of the 
idol called " Humanity ;" but that "the earth is the Lord's 
and the fulness thereof." It would be well to have these 
words of wisdom, not merely engraved on the marble 
that at present marks the centre of worldly aspirations, 
in the great metropolis, but in the hearts of a mighty 
people, who seem already spoiled by continuous and un- 
checked prosperity. 

There is however one great kingdom, and because it 
has been set up by the God of Heaven, " it shall," as the 
Prophet Daniel writes, " never be destroyed," and "it 
shall stand forever" (Daniel ii. 44). This kingdom, 
which is called by Macaulay " The everlasting Church," 
the Church built by our Divine Lord on Peter, will re- 
sist even the worst assaults of Hell itself. 

Even when Satan shall, by the worse than Pagan 
irreligion and impiety, that prevails, and is every day 
spreading with fearful rapidity, resume his empire in 



394 



CONCLUSION. 



this world ; and its laws shall be delivered into his hands 
"for a time," the rock, "cut out of the mountain, with- 
out hands," shall defy his eflforts to upheave it. The 
successor of St. Peter may be driven out, and become a 
wanderer on the face of the earth ; but wherever he 
rests his feet, there shall the rock be found beneath them, 
— " TJbiPetrus, ibi Eeelesia" (St. Ambrose in Psalm xl., — 
n. 30). Weapons, more potent even than that product 
of diabolical ingenuity which, while it saps all human 
rights, is applauded by those who profit by it, as one of 
the bright discoveries of modern progress, — "the logic 
of accomplished facts," may be hurled at this rock, but 
they will strike in vain. The M word that shall never 
pass away," — the promise of perpetual stability, will be 
fulfilled till time shall be no more, and when this king- 
dom is transferred to Heaven, there, shall the Church 
Triumphant reign in glory, as long as God exists. 

How vain and silly it is for men who have read his- 
tory, to be ever on the look-out for the telegram, that 
shall announce the tidings, so joyful to the enemies of 
Christ that the Holy Father, the successor of St, Peter, 
is about to fly from Rome, or better still, has actually 
abandoned the holy city ! Why they, who so confidently 
proclaim that the Papacy is no more, should give them- 
selves SO much concern about the movements of an old 
man, weak and helpless in all worldly power, is more 
than they can themselves well account for. 

They who regard the complete spoliation of Leo XIII., 
as a vital question for Catholic Christianity, should re- 
member, that his predecessors, for three hundred years 
of the most sanguinary persecution, ruled the Church 
" to the uttermost parts of the earth," from the tombs of 
the Catacombs. They should also bear in mind, that, in 



CONCLUSION. 



395 



those evil days of Pagan supremacy, the kingdom of God 
on earth grew so luxuriantly, fertilized as it was by the 
blood of nearly twelve millions of martyrs, that Chris- 
tians crowded even the palace of the Csesars. 

And why is this? Because Persecution is the chief 
means, adopted by Divine Providence, to develop its 
ever-youthful strength and vigor. Never, during its 
whole history, were its powers so knit together in healthy 
activity, as in these very days, in which the existence of 
Christianity, outside its fold, is threatened by the raven- 
ing wolves of a wide-spread and ever-growing Infidelity. 
The last definition of the Vatican Council marks the 
utmost extreme of spoliation and bondage that is possible 
for daring impiety. Though the last refuge of the Holy 
Father in Rome may be closed against him, and his 
brethren, " placed to rule the Church of God which He 
hath purchased with His own blood " (Acts xx. 28), his 
infallible voice shall go forth, with an influence, more 
touching to every Catholic heart from the fact that he is 
suffering for justice sake, and guide the flock, spread 
throughout the world, in all its perplexities and difficul- 
ties. 

There is yet another point worth remembering, it is 
clearly brought out by Cardinal Manning, in his work, 
" The Independence of the Holy See." " The head of 
the Christian world can never be disturbed from his 
rightful seat without causing perturbation throughout the 
Christian world." " Never," says his Eminence, " in the 
history of Christian Europe, since the year eight hun- 
dred " (when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the 
West by Pope Leo III., and secured the Holy Father in 
his temporal power), "has the Sovereignty of Pome been 
violated by force, but, throughout the whole of Christian 



396 



CONCLUSION. 



Europe, there lias been spread a perturbation, which has 
only been redressed through sanguinary wars" (p. 39). 

It must be a sore affliction to the children of unbelief, 
who are exulting over the proximate annihilation of 
Catholic Christianity, to learn, that, in free America, as 
I see by the Directory of this year, the Church is making 
the most wonderful progress. There are now in the 
United States, 13 Archbishops, 57 Bishops, 6835 priests, 
1C>:>1 ecclesiastical students, Ml 3 churches, 1150 chap- 
els, 1 IrTO stations, 22 ecclesiastical seminaries, 87 colleges, 
599 academies, 2532 parochial schools, 4sl,s:u pupils 
attending the parochial schools, 29-4- asylums, and 139 
hospital-. The total Catholic population of the States 

is set down at 6,623,176: many Catholic writers say 

that this e-tiinate i-> too low, and that it is nearer ten 

millions. 1 do not find the Dumber of convents and 
monasteries, given either in this Directory, or that of 
lsso; hut referring to Bishop Spalding's " Essays and 
Reviews," published in l s 77. I found that the number of 
convents for women in that year was 350, and for men 
130. 

Considering that in 1 70n, there was not one convent in 
the United States ; and that a hundred years ago, there was 
no Bishop, only i ; r» priests and about 40,000 Catholics, this 
vast increase certainly does not look like decay. I will 
say nothing about the growth of the Church in Australia 
and throughout the Colonies. It will be quite enough to 
note the growth of Catholicity in the United States, 
where it was once confidently stated, by men of much 
learning and authority, that the old religion could never 
prosper. 

Who can say what the future of the Christian Religion, 
outside the Catholic Church, will be, fifty years hence ? 



CONCLUSION. 



397 



Lacordaire, who died in 1861, one of the most gifted 
men of his generation in France, and who had given 
considerable attention to the nature of Protestantism, 
expressed his conviction, that, before the opening of the 
next century, it would, as a Religion, cease to have any 
hold on the minds of the cultured classes. 

In the face of the spreading Infidelity, its entirely 
negative character is becoming every day more apparent. 
Now that it has other work on its hands than to abuse 
the old Church, and is obliged to make every effort to 
rally its supporters against the vigorous assaults of the 
" isms," I have described in the concluding chapters of 
this book, it is brought to feel and acknowledge its in- 
herent weakness. 

If the force of popular opinion carries disestablish- 
ment, and there ceases to be a National religion in Eng- 
land, it is not easy to see, what can stop the rapid prog- 
ress of disintegration. Certainly mere sentimentalism 
and emotional piety will not do it. This sort of un- 
natural excitement suffers, more than any other senti- 
ment, by reaction ; and with the spread of Godless 
education, mere pious words, and phrases, and unctuous 
appeals to feeling, will not satisfy the irreverent spirit 
of Free-thought, which is the natural outcome of educa- 
tion without God. 

Most thinking men, and they are so few in these busy 
times that one can easily collect their views, agree that, 
soon, even before fifty years are past, there will be in the 
world that once was Christian, only two camps. Infidel- 
ity on the one side, and Catholic Christianity on the other. 

Then shall come the decisive test, which will try every 
human being able to form a judgment. Christ and His 
entire message of Peace to men of good-will on the one 



398 



CONCLUSION. 



Land, and Anti-Christian theories on the other will set 
themselves plainly and unmistakably before each individ- 
ual, and he shall realize to himself the meaning of these 
words of our Divine Lord — M lie that is not with me is 
against me" (Matt. xii. 30). 

In view of those evil days, when Faith will be sorely 
tried in all who wiirnot hear the Church, Christians of 
every denomination should say from their hearts — 
"Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and 
enkindle in them the lire of Thy love, send forth Thy 
spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew 
the face of the earth/' It is only this Heavenly grace 
that can dissipate the darkness of error, and bring all, 
who really desire it, to the knowledge and love of Truth. 
This is "a consummation devoutly to be wished for" be- 
yond all othei blessings : — "For this is good and accept- 
able in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all 
men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the 
truth" (1 Tim. ii. 3, 4). 



INDEX. 



Accomplished facts, 48. 

Adler, Dr., his sermons, 28. 

Agnosticism, its tactics, 350; ab- 
surdity of the "unknowable," 
350; St. Paul and unknown 
God, 351; refuted by Frederic 
Harrison, 351. 

Agnus Dei, 127. 

Alice, and her childish dreams, 
55. 

Allenstein, Von, testimony on un- 
denominational schools, 197. 

Alvimore, Baron d', extracts from 
old traditions, Chinese, Hin- 
doo, Persian, Mexican, 361, 362. 

America, freedom favorable to 
Catholic Church, 190; common- 
schools in, 199-202; almighty 
dollar, 277, 354; newspaper tes- 
timony on common-schools, 
202 ; sacrifices for preservation 
of liberty, 334; extraordinary 
growth of Catholic Church in, 
396. 

Antichrist and scarlet woman 
not applied by Infidels to Catho- 
lic Church, 172. 

Apocalypse, and Christian wor- 
ship, 155. 

Appenzell, canton of Inner and 
Ausser Rhoden, 286. 

Apres nous le deluge, 71. 

Assaults of Infidelity self-de- 
structive, Voltaire, 322. 

Assurance of salvation, danger 
of, 217; no positive in Catholic 
Church, 220. 

Athanasian Creed dissolving, 33; 
on Incarnation, 84, 269. 

Athens, Rome, Alexandria, 
schools of thought, 178. 



Atonement, Ingersoll's " infamy" 
of, 238. 

Augustine, St., the altar, 128; 
quotation from " City of God," 
290; principle of belief in 
Scripture, 325; on Spiritism, 
382. 

Bag of bones theory, 181, 302, 
344. 

Baptism, water essential in, 109; 
necessary for salvation, 307; 
Church of, true meaning, 307; 
fate of unbaptized children, 
309; unbaptized Pagans, 309. 

Battle of Dorking, 393. 

Bayle, on doubts of Infidels, 320. 

Benediction of Blessed Sacra- 
ment, 97. 

Belief in Christ includes all His 
doctrine, 303. 

Beaconsfield, Lord, on Atheism, 
350. 

Bible, its wide propagation use- 
less, 23; as rule of Faith, 39; 
Christianity, Infidel assaults 
against, 44. 

Bingham on worship, 155. 

Blessed Eucharist, objection from 
irreverence of Catholics, 135; 
connection with Incarnation, 
165; worship of, not Idolatry, 
165. 

Blind man, in relation to mys- 
teries, 42. 

Bohlen, Von, Vater, Hartmann, 
Norton, on antiquity of writ- 
ing, 323. 

Boldetti, Bosio, Bottari, Aringhi, 
D'Agincourt, on Catacombs. 
156. 



400 



INDEX. 



Bon jean, President, and Mgr. 
Darboy, their death at La 
Roquette, 114. 

Bourdaloue on salvation of Pa- 
gans, 310. 

Bradlaugh, sentiments of his 
class, 18. 

Brutum fulmen, strong arm of 
law, 18. 

Buddha, resemblance to Christ; 
objection answered by Bentley, 
180. 

Caipitab and Exponents of Pro- 
phecy, 147. 

Calvin, his teaching on Predesti- 
nation, 254-256. 

Canada, its colonization, 291; 
Champlain, 291; lloehelaira, 

B93, 

Callan, Dr., Ifiaynooth, 176. 

Cant and Hypocrisy hated, 53. 
Capital, and* its possessors, 88. 
Carpenter, Dr.. on Spiritism, B74 

Castraeani, Abbe, count de, 175. 

Catacombs, martyrs of, 113; suc- 
cessors of St. Peter in the, 128; 
worship in, 156. 

Catholics, bad lives of some, 93; 
Catholic countries always 
Cheery, 252; always poor, 279. 

Catholic Church, said to be enemy 
of Progress, 44; Intemperate 
arguments against, 45; con- 
tradictory charges against, 46; 
old-fashioned, 47; never per- 
secuted, 49; her right to teach, 
51; how to be attacked, 51; 
secret of her vigorous life, 124; 
sublime grandeur of, 127; a 
society of men, 138; and mate- 
rial progress, 187; doctrine on 
Original sin, 267; Catholic 
truth how sustained, 321; 
Catholic doctrine expounded 
as a whole, advantages of, 385; 
Catholic want of devotion, 
339; extraordinary growth in 
America, 396; her future in 
the world, 396; everlasting 
kingdom, 373; grew luxuriant- 



ly in persecution, 394; Catho- 
lic countries poor, objection, 
279. 

Celsus and Porphyry, caricature 

of Christianity, 28. 
Charles II. and his problem, 67. 
Christmas devotions, 104. 
Children dear to Christ, 55. 
Chinese traditions, 361. 
Christ in garden of Gethsemani, 

137. 

Chrvsostom, St. John, adoration 
of angels, 149; Spiritism, 382. 

Clement, St.. Church of, in 
Rome, 128. 

Colenzoand Polygamy, 226; and 
Zulu convert, 331. 

Colonial youth, irreverence in 
churches, 161 ; their notions of 
Religion, 211; travellers in 
Europe, their impressions, 288; 
explanations of Spiritism, 374; 

Communion, Holy, makes us in- 
dividually sharers in atone- 
ment, 125. 

Comparative study of languages 
proves unity of human race, 
866. 

Concupiscence, 237. 

Convents, why people shut them- 
selves up in, 225; folly of, 247. 

Converts, false ideas in reference 
to sanctity of Catholics, 140; 
not much study required of 
them, 166; conversions singu- 
lar, 213. 

Cook and Maskelyne in Egyp- 
tian Hall, 371. 

Cousin, Pantheist, 338; his con- 
version, 343. 

Cowper, Poet, on Materialism, 
349. 

Cromwell, a saying of his, 254; 

his war-cry, 285. 
Cyril, St., and Christ-bearers, 

130. 

Darwin, his facts, 67; his theory 
and Evolution of Religion, 

358. 

Deceased friends, spirits of, 381 



INDEX. 



401 



Demonstrations fivangeliques, 
celebrated work of Abbe 
Migne, 68. 

Descartes, bis Philosophy, 337. 

Devereux, Bishop, 96. 

Devil not believed to exist, 379; 
still exists, 380. 

Dickens, Charles, his sympathy 
for the fallen, 53; David Cop- 
perfield, Heep, and Littimer, 
223, 224; Mrs. Clenham's relig- 
ion, 253, 368. 

Deists intolerant, 304. 

Divorce courts, 207. 

Divine right, 187. 

Donatists, false ideas of perfec- 
tion, 143, 

Duty of parents, 193, 195. 

Eastern Keligions and Catholic 
Christianity, 360; peoples, tra- 
ditions of, 361. 

Education without God, 19; its 
main object, 191; denomina- 
tional and undenominational, 
192; Compulsory, 196; "God- 
less," 196; in American " com- 
mon-schools, " 199, 202; in 
Prussia, 196; in France, 198; 
effects in America, newspaper 
testimony, 201. 

Egyptian Hall, Cook and Maske- 
lyne, 371. 

Eliot, George, poetry, 342; Mal- 
lock's view of, 342. 

Emotional Christianity, 215; 
dangerous illusion, 220; ex- 
tempore prayer, 244; Revivals, 
242, 245; weakness of, 396. 

End never justifies the means, 37. 

England "workshop of the 
world," 287; poverty in, 290; 
frauds of spiritists detected 
in, 371. 

Epicurus, 343. 

Eternity of torments, belief in, 
not incompatible with enjoy- 
ments of life, 94, 132; decree 
of God, 182. 

Evolution, 318; on hypothesis of 
Personal God, 339; possible to 



certain extent, meets certain 
scriptural difficulties, 358; Evo- 
lution of Religion, 359; both 
begin at wrong end, 358. 

Exclusive Salvation, dogmas of 
Catholic Church upon, 306; 
exclusiveness, 302. 

Extreme Unction, its consola- 
tions, 98. 

Fabiola, loss of natural gifts, 
343; the slave Syra, 341. 

Faith, wilful rejection of, 139; 
misery of renunciation, 169; in 
Lord's supper, 390; Catholics 
live in atmosphere of, 172. 

Family, without God, 21. 

Fawcett, his testimony on state 
of working-classes, 71. 

Fichte, 338. 

Fire of Hell explained, 133; de- 
cree of God, 182. 

Formulary of concord, 235. 

France, theology in, 17; Educa- 
tion in, 198; degeneracy in, 18; 
not poor because Catholic, 
293. 

Free-thinkers not abusive of 
Catholic Church, 172. 

Frescos in St. Clement's, testi- 
mony of, 128. 

Frothingham, his essays, 28. 

Froude, his testimony about pro- 
tection of trade in Ireland, 
284. 

Gloria in excelsis, 127, 

God of the Bible according to 
Ingersoll, 52; our Father, 339; 
Indignation terrible, 391; 
" Scourge of God," 392; har- 
dening hearts, 259. 

Gospel, parables of, in reference 
to Church, 142. 

Gordon riots, 19. 

Grace, divine, interior compared 
with natural gifts, 264; com- 
mon, 265; power of co-operat- 
ing with, 266; Moehler's teach- 
ing on, 267; main difficulty, 
271; Pelagian heresy on, 271; 



402 



INDEX. 



beauty of Catholic doctrine on, 
275; Newman on power of, 147. 

Hallam, his views of persecu- 
tion, 49. 

Hamlet, dread of something after 

death, 344 
Harmony of Revealed truths, 

76. 

Harrison, Frederic, Religion of 
Humanity, 277; a few passages 
from NifutoGtUh Century, 854 

Ilaullevillc Baron de, Catholic 
and Protestant progress. 2*6. 

Heart, Sacred, 380; strengthens 
other mysteries, 383. 

Hegel, 338. 

Heretics and Schismatics, fate of, 

810. 

Humanity, worship of, 855, 

Human llbert? and intolerance, 
300. 

Hock, Doctor. 1 -10. 
Hurter, Frederic, 146. 

Hypocrisy and eant. hated, 53. 

Idi.kness, not encouraged by 

Catholic Church, 850. 
Idolatry, no, in worship of Uloscd 

Sacrament, 105. 

Imagination developed by Catho- 
lic teaching, 104. 

Immaculate Conception, 35; de- 
finition of, 80. 

Incarnation, Newman on, 80; 
errors about, 81; Belief in, 
makes Blessed Eucharist easy, 
129; connection with Blessed 
Eucharist, 165. 

Incomprehensible, God necessar- 
ily. 58; can God require us to 
believe incomprehensible 
truths? 60. 

Indian traditions. 363. 

Indifference, enemy of truth, 38; 
danger of, 311. 

Individualism another name for 
Rationalism. 29. 

Inductive Philosophy. 67. 

Infallibility, a necessary claim, 
40; different from impeccabil- 



ity, 147; guide necessary, Mal- 

lock's view of, 325. 

Infants unbaptized, fate of, 309. 

Infidelity of present time, its 
characteristics, 14; "poor imi- 
tations of polished ungodli- 
ness," 325. 

Ingersoll, Colonel, bis lectures, 
28; name applied to God of 
Bible, 52; on Trinity. 57; large 
audiences he commands, 57; 
his vision of judgment; 322; 
atonement, his ideas of, 238; 
hatred of God of Bible, 255; 
objection to Pentateuch, 320; 
consequences determine nature 
of acts, 261. 

[nquisition, 183. 

Instinct and Keason, 346. 

Interior life of Priests and Re- 
ligious, 148. 

Intolerance of truth, 48; true 
meaning. 299 : ol' error, 181; 
of civil law, 305. 

[evincible ignorance, 312; not 
uve <ouls, but excuse wilful 

fault. 818; is it extensive, 314. 

li; \ < »cat i< -!i of saints, argument 
against, 43. 

Ireland, name applied to Blessed 
Virgin in, 80; weird tradi- 
tion- of. ?s ; progress of religion 
in, 123; causes of poverty, 282; 
I'lster and ( "onnaught , 283. 

[rish, their deep seated religion, 
79; and Scotch compared, 284. 

Janbenists, their doctrine of 
what is becoming in God, 100; 
pernicious influence, 105. 

Japan, Buddhism and the pros- 
perity of, 293. 

Jehovah, name of awe, 83. 

Jerome, St., and judgment, 135. 

Jesuit Fathers of Zambesi, 115; 
earnestness of their faith, 116; 
College rue des Postes, Paris, 
176; Stoneyhurst, 176. 

Jew. a learned one at Bethlehem, 
92; Jewish people, historv of 
Providence, 333. 



INDEX. 



403 



Julian the Apostate, his objec- 
tions, 28. 316. 

Justice and Reason, 340. 

Justification, 229; definition of, 
231; Moehler's symbolism on, 
232. 

Kant, 338. 

Kaye, political economist, 70. 
Kyrie eleison, 127. 

Lacordaire. his view of degene- 
racy in France, 31; on salva- 
tion of heretics, 313; " Wander- 
ing Jew," 333 ; decline of 
Protestantism, 397. 

Land of the nation in the hands 
of a few, 70. 

La Roquette and its martyrs, 115. 

Lavaleye, M. de, on Catholic 
and Protestant progress, 282; 
Catholic countries do not colo- 
nize, 291. 

Lectures, Wiseman's, Gospel par- 
ables, 142; on science and reve- 
lation, 179; Lectures on spirit- 
ism, 373. 

Leyden school of theology, 302. 

Liberal Protestants intolerant, 
304. 

Liberty, human, and intolerance, 
305. 

Lie, never lawful, 38. 
Life, rule of, in fashionable Lon- 
don, 22. 
Light, too much, 179. 
Liturgies, 156. 

Longevity of patriarchs, 362. 
Louise Lateau, 136. 
Louisiana, its colonization, 292. 
Louis XV., his courtiers on eve 

of Revolution, 70. 
Louvre, picture in, of decadence 

of Imperial Rome, 69. 
Luther, his stroug language, 25; 

his centenary, 26; on intimate 

conviction, 220. 

Mafiomedans, their notions of 

Heaven, 73. 
Mammon, worship of, 277. 



Mallock on necessity of infallible 
guide, 325; his views of Catholic 
Church, 38, 51 ; views of George 
Eliot, 342. 

Manhood of Christ to be adored, 
102; His body in death object 
of adoration, 103. 

Manning, Cardinal, on love of 
neighbor, 225 ; sanctification 
according to, 235; notion of 
true liberty, 806 ; temporal 
sovereignty never disturbed 
but with confusion of all Chris- 
tendom, 395. 

Maria Monk and scandalous 
stories, 117. 

Mary, " Mother of God," 85. 

Maskelyne and Cook in Egyp- 
tian Hall, 371, 375. 

Master of ceremonies, 167. 

Materialism and positivism, 343; 
contradiction not possible in 
matter, 348. 

McCarthy, Abbe, on mysteries, 
60, 66. 

Melancthon, curious testimony 
of, 236. 

Mexican traditions, 363. 

Microscope, its revelations, 62. 

Midas, Sir Gorgius, 290. 

Miracle of loaves and fishes, 91; 
Christ walking on waters, 
entering closed room, 92. 

Moehler, symbolism, 232; testi- 
mony about good pagans, 267; 
doctrine on Grace, 267; Free- 
will, 268. 

Morality of Catholic and Pro- 
testant countries compared, 292; 
same for all classes, 296. 

Mormonism, 334. 

Moses, writing known to, 322; 
remarkable history, 327; grand 
conception of, 328; his division 
of history, 330. 

Mliller, Von, testimony to Catho- 
lic Church, 207; Rev. Michael, 
204, 207. 

Mundella, France worthy of imi- 
tation in godless education, 
32. 



404 



INDEX. 



Mungo, St., cathedral of, in Glas- 
gow, 153. 

Mysteries, belief in, honors God, 
41 ; has Religion a right to teach 
them, 58; their use, 72; how 
consoling, 72; Dot contradic- 
tory, 74; Protestants afraid to 
analyze, 99. 

Native driver on immortality, 
344. 

Nature, a hard mistress, 260; 
knowledge of laws in spirit- 
ism, 37b. 

Nestorius, his denial of divinity 
of Christ. 101. 

Newman, Cardinal, on power of 
God - grace and supernatural 
life, 147; Apologia, 312. 

Nicodeinus and Baptism, 109. 

No-popery erv not used i>y In- 
fidels, 174. 

Novitiate of Religious orders, 110. 

Nuns, how they build their 
schools, 121. 

Oakley, Rev. Frederic, contra- 
dictory charges v. Catholic 
Church, 45; on Sacraments, 
111; on Vocation to Keliirious 
life, 119. 

Object of adoration something 
sensible, 96. 

Offertory of the Mass, 97. 

Omousios and Omoiousios, 2G9. 

" Osmosis," its meaning, 345. 

Original sin, effects of, 239; Cal- 
vin on, 238; Catholic doctrine 
on, 239. 

Outward means of Grace taught 
by Christ, 107. 

Paganism, wonders of, why be- 
lieved, 372. 

Pantheism, 337; its meaning, 
338; what it amouuts to, 338; 
what splendid Catholics they 
miixht be, 340; their eloquence, 
341. 

Pauperism, 194; a curse, 290; 
efforts of Catholic Church to 



relieve it, 291; objection on 

this, 290. 
Papists believe anything, 163. 
Parables of Gospel in reference 

to Church, 142. 
Pelagians, zeal of Reformers 

against, 53, 232; their errors 

on grace, 271, 274. 
Pentateuch, objections against, 

Exodus and, 326. 
Period short for man's existence 

on earth, objection, 112. 
Perraud, Father's, sermon on 

Mgr. Darboy. 113. 
Perrone, on Spiritism, 372. 
Persecution, Catholic Church 

never persecuted, 49, 183. 
Persian traditions, 363. 

Pharisees, their cry, 27; piety of, 
231, 234. 

Philippine Islands colonized by 
Catliolies. 'J92; Sir .John Bow- 
ring's testimony, 292. 

Physiology, little known to the 
many, 63. 

Pilgrimages, use of, 186. 

Planchette, 377. 

Polemical disputation avoided in 
this book, 213. 

Popery, in the notions of colo- 
nists, 160; denunciations of, 
164; no-popery, 174. 

Popes, said in some cases to be 
wicked, 145. 

Pre-Adamite man, 318. 

Preacher, what expected of him, 
21. 

Predestination. 246; Calvin's no- 
tions of, 204-256. 

Preface of Christmas Da} r , 97. 

Pride, temptation of, 30. 

Priests and Religious not swayed 
by Pharisaical pride, 119. 

Processions, 97. 

Protestantism, Schleiermacher's 

view of it, 33; decline of, 396; 

Lacordaire, 397. 
Providence, Voltaire on, 261; 

check on Spiritism, 354. 
Prussia, one third Catholic, 292; 

education in, 196. 



INDEX. 



405 



Public penances and "experi- 
ences," 230. 

"Quod nimis probat, nihil pro- 
bat," 75. 

Rationalistic conceptions of 
Catholic Church, 173; Ration- 
alism, its latest outcome, 30. 

Realism, Harrison, 354; its latest 
view, 28. 

Real presence, connection with 
Incarnation, 88; its difficulties, 
89; not appreciated, 93; once 
the Faith of Christendom, 127, 
389. 

Reason and Instinct, 346. 
Reign of terror, recent in Paris, 
114. 

Religion, common origin of, ob- 
jection, 180; one as good as 
another, 302, 303. 

Resurrection of Christ more 
clearlv proved by sustained at- 
tacks, 365. 

Revelation, has God spoken, 66. 

Reverend teachers of error, 28. 

Revivals, 245. 

Ridicule, its influence, 316. 

Rigor of Catholic doctrine no 
discouragement, 265. 

Ritualism, 153. 

Rock, Dr., 155. 

Rock of Church, its perpetuity, 

23, 326, 394. 
Romans languid, insensible to 

danger, 70; Roman triumph 

and contrast, 392. 
Roscoe, 146. 

Sacrament, of penance, 95; 
definition of, 108; sacramental 
system, errors of Reformers, 
110. 

Saint Augustine, 290, 325, 382. 
Saint Chrvsostom, 149, 382. 
Saint Clement, 128. 
Saint Cyril, 130. 
Saint Jerome, 135. 
Saint Thomas, 382, 388. 



Sacred Heart, can we worship 

it? 100, 386. 
Salvation exclusive, 297. 
Sanchoniathon, 323, 362. 
Sanctification and justification, 

228. 

Schleiermacher, his view of Pro- 
testantism, 33. 

Scientific research not opposed 
by Catholic Church, 175. 

Scripture, summary of objections 
to, and principles of reply, 335. 

" Scourge of God " in ruin of 
ancient Rome, 392. 

Secchi, Father, 175. 

Sentimental religion, objection 
to, not meant to be offensive, 
388. 

Sidgreaves and Perry, Fathers, 
175. 

Simon, M. Jules, his eloquent 
words on national decay, 32, 
294. 

Simplicity of Catholic worship, 
151. 

Smith, Dr., on Pentateuch, an- 
tiquity of writing, 323. 

Society without God, 47. 

Soul of the Church, 305; soul 
not material, 343. 

Spalding, Bishop, on wealth and 
poverty, 287; unbelievers make 
common cause with Protes- 
tants, 293. 

Spencer, Herbert, God hardening 
hearts, 259; worship of Hu- 
manity, 238. 

Spinoza and Pantheism, 337. 

Spiritism, 185, 187, 369; objec- 
tion — belongs to dark ages, 
369; temptations to, 369; why 
succeeds in America, 372; 
wonders of, 370; frauds de- 
tected, 371; explanations of 
young colonists, 375; lecture 
on, 373; Egyptian Hall and 
Slade, 372; proof of diabolical 
agency, 376; Planchette, 377; 
knowledge of laws of nature, 
378; who can know them all, 
378; produces good, 380; souls 



406 



INDEX. 



of deceased, 381; not modern, 
382; in Deuteronomy, 382. 

Success, in Catholic sense, 122. 

Switzerland, rich and poor Can- 
tons, 286. 

Tabernacle and meeting-house, 
152. 

Temptation of Pride, 340. 
Testament, old and new united, 
326. 

The Holy Ghost Bensibly Indicat- 
ing His. presence, a delusion, 
171. 

Thought not divisible. 347. 

Traveller in Ireland. 217; colo- 
nial in Europe, 801, 

Trinity, in \>t t T v explained to 
children, 56 ; [ngers< '11 on, 57; 
true doctrine of, 57. 

Truth intolerant. 291). 

Vkdas of Hindoos, 362. 
Vincent of Lfrinfl, on salvation 

of heretics, :;i 1 . 
Vocation, Religious, 117; Father 

Oakley on, 119. 



Voight, Professor, 146. 
Voltaire, his disciples and their 

labors, 14; on Providence, 261, 

323. 

TViiately, Archbishop, on Na- 
poleon's existence, 324. 

Wickliffe and liuss false ideas 
of perfection, 143. 

Wiseman, Cardinal. Exposition 
of Parables, 142 ; Lectures 
on Science and Revelation, 
179. 

Worldlv-minded notions of Re- 
ligious life, 249. 

Worship, regulated by Divine 
ordinance, 154; Catholic, ob- 
jections to. 157; attractive in 
Catholic Church, 158; unfolds 
sacramental system, 168; in 
early Christian times, 155; 

Apocalypse and Christian wor- 
ship, 155; simplicity of, 150; 
Bingham on, 156; mode in 
Catacombs, 156; of Blessed 
Sacrament, 165; upholds the 
Suraments, 168. 



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